LIBRARY 


CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


XX 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL'S  WRITINGS, 


POEMS.  Sixteenmo  Edition.  2  vols.  •  .  -$3.00 
Do.  Cabinet  Edition.  2  vols.  iSrao  .  .  4.00 
Do.  Blue  and  Gold.  2  vols.  32010  .  .3.00 
Do.  Complete.  Diamond  Edition  .  .  i  50 
Do.  Complete.  Red-Line  Edition.  Illustrated. 

Portrait.     Small  410.     Full  gilt     .        .     4.50 

THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL.  i6mo  .75 
Do.  Illustrated.  Small  410.  Full  gilt  3.00 

THE   COURTIN'.      Illustrated  in   Silhouette  by 
WINSLOW  HOMER.     Full  gilt.     410  ....    3.00 

UNDER   THE    WILLOWS,    and  other  Poems. 

i6mo.     Bevelled  boards,  gilt  top    ....     2.00 

THE  CATHEDRAL.  i6mo  ....  1.25 
A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS.  i6mo  .  .  .75 

THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS.  First  Series.  i6mo  .  1.50 

Do.  Second  Series.  i6mo  -  1.50 

FIRESIDE  TRAVELS.  i6mo  .  .  .  1.50 
AMONG  MY  BOOKS.  First  Series.  i2mo  .  .  2.00 

Do.  Second  Series,  izmo  .  2.00 

MY  STUDY  WINDOWS.  i2mo  .  .  .2.00 


V  Far  sale  by  all  Booksellers.     Sent,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of 
price  by  the  Publishers. 


JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  &  CO.,  Boston. 


AMONG    MY    BOOKS 


SECOND  SERIES. 


JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL, 

PROFESSOR    OF    BELLES-LETTRES    IN     HARVARD    COLLEGE. 


BOSTON: 

JAMES    R.    OSGOOD    AND    COMPANY, 
LATE  TICKNOR  &  FIELDS,  AND  FIELDS,  OSGOOD,  &  Co. 

1876. 


COPYRIGHT,  1876. 
BY  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co., 
CAMBRIDGE. 


TO 

E.  W.   EMERSON. 

A  love  and  hoiior  which  more  than  thirty  years  have  deepened, 
though  priceless  to  him  they  enrich,  are  of  little  import  to  one 
capable  of  inspiring  them.  Yet  I  cannot  deny  myself  the  pleas 
ure  of  so  far  intruding  on  your  reserve  as  at  least  to  make  public 
acknowledgment  of  the  debt  I  can  never  repay. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

DANTE  .  .  1 


SPENSER 125 

WORDSWORTH       . 201 

MILTON 252 

KEATS  .  .  303 


DANTE.* 


ON  the  banks  of  a  little  river  so  shrunken  by  the 
suns  of  summer  that  it  seems  fast  passing  into  a  tra 
dition,  but  swollen  by  the  autumnal  rains  with  an 
Italian  suddenness  of  passion  till  the  massy  bridge 
shudders  under  the  impatient  heap  of  waters  behind  it, 
stands  a  city  which,  in  its  period  of  bloom  not  so  large 
as  Boston,  may  well  rank  next  to  Athens  in  the  history 
which  teaches  come  t  uom  s'  eterna. 

Originally  only  a  convenient  spot  in  the  valley  where 
the  fairs  of  the  neighboring  Etruscan  city  of  Fiesole 
were  held,  it  gradually  grew  from  a  huddle  of  booths  to 
a  town,  and  then  to  a  city,  which  absorbed  its  ancestral 
neighbor  and  became  a  cradle  for  the  arts,  the  letters, 
the  science,  and  the  commerce  t  of  modern  Europe. 

*  The  Shadow  of  Dante,  "being  an  Essay  towards  studying  Himself, 
his  World,  and  his  Pilgrimage.  By  MARIA  FRANCESCA  ROSSETTI. 

"  Se  Dio  te  lasci,  lettor  prender  frutto 
Di  tua  lezione." 

Boston  :  Roberts  Brothers.     1872.    8vo.    'pp.  296. 

t  The  Florentines  should  seem  to  have  invented  or  re-invented 
banks,  book-keeping  by  double-entry,  and  bills  of  exchange.  The 
last,  by  endowing  Value  with  the  gift  of  fern-seed  and  enabling  it 
to  walk  invisible,  turned  the  flank  of  the  baronial  tariff-system  and 
made  the  roads  safe  for  the  great  liberalizer  Commerce.  This  made 
Money  omnipresent,  and  prepared  the  way  for  its  present  omnipo 
tence.  Fortunately  it  cannot  iisurp  the  third  attribute  of  Deity,  — 
omniscience.  But  whatever  the  consequences,  this  Florentine  inven- 

1  A 


2  DANTE. 

For  her  Cimabue  wrought,  who  infused  Byzantine  for 
malism  with  a  suggestion  of  nature  and  feeling ;  for  her 
the  Pisani,  who  divined  at  least,  if  they  could  not  con 
jure  with  it,  the  secret  of  Greek  supremacy  in  sculp 
ture  ;  for  her  the  marvellous  boy  Ghiberti  proved  that 
unity  of  composition  and  grace  of  figure  and  drapery 
were  never  beyond  the  reach  of  genius  ;  *  for  her  Bru- 
nelleschi  curved  the  dome  which  Michel  Angelo  hung  in 
air  on  St.  Peter's  ;  for  her  Giotto  reared  the  bell-tower 
graceful  as  an  Horatian  ode  in  marble  ;  and  the  great  tri 
umvirate  of  Italian  poetry,  good  sense,  and  culture  called 
her  mother.  There  is  no  modern  city  about  which 
cluster  so  many  elevating  associations,  none  in  which 
the  past  is  so  contemporary  with  us  in  unchanged  build 
ings  and  undisturbed  monuments.  The  house  of  Dante 
is  still  shown ;  children  still  receive  baptism  at  the  font 
(il  mio  bd  San  Giovanni)  where  he  was  christened  before 
the  acorn  dropped  that  was  to  grow  into  a  keel  for  Co 
lumbus  ;  and  an  inscribed  stone  marks  the  spot  where 
he  used  to  sit  and  watch  the  slow  blocks  swing  up  to 
complete  the  master-thought  of  Arnolfo.  In  the  con 
vent  of  St.  Mark  hard  by  lived  and  labored  Beato  An- 
gelico,  the  saint  of  Christian  art,  and  Fra  Bartolommeo, 
who  taught  Raphael  dignity.  From  the  same  walls 
Savonarola  went  forth  to  his  triumphs,  short-lived  al 
most  as  the  crackle  of  his  martyrdom.  The  plain  little 
chamber  of  Michel  Angelo  seems  still  to  expect  hia 
return ;  his  last  sketches  lie  upon  the  table,  his  staff 

tion  was  at  first  nothing  but  admirable,  securing  to  brain  its  legiti 
mate  influence  over  brawn.  The  latter  has  begun  its  revolt,  but 
whether  it  will  succeed  better  in  its  attempt  to  restore  mediaeval 
methods  than  the  barons  in  maintaining  them  remains  to  be  seen. 

*  Ghiberti's  designs  have  been  criticised  by  a  too  systematic  aesthet- 
icism,  as  confounding  the  limits  of  sculpture  and  painting.  But  is 
not  the  rilievo  precisely  the  bridge  by  which  the  one  art  passes  over 
into  the  territory  of  the  other  ? 


DANTE.  6 

leans  in  the  corner,  and  his  slippers  wait  before  the 
empty  chair.  On  one  of  the  vine-clad  hills,  just  with 
out  the  city  walls,  one's  feet  may  press  the  same  stairs 
that  Milton  climbed  to  visit  Galileo.  To  an  American 
there  is  something  supremely  impressive  in  this  cumu 
lative  influence  of  the  past  full  of  inspiration  and  re 
buke,  something  saddening  in  this  repeated  proof  that 
moral  supremacy  is  the  only  one  that  leaves  monuments 
and  not  ruins  behind  it.  Time,  who  with  us  obliterates 
the  labor  and  often  the  names  of  yesterday,  seems  here 
to  have  spared  almost  the  prints  of  the  care  piante  that 
shunned  the  sordid  paths  of  worldly  honor. 

Around  the  courtyard  of  the  great  Museum  of  Flor 
ence  stand  statues  of  her  illustrious  dead,  her  poets, 
painters,  sculptors,  architects,  inventors,  and  statesmen  ; 
and  as  the  traveller  feels  the  ennobling  lift  of  such 
society,  and  reads  the  names  or  recognizes  the  features 
familiar  to  him  as  his  own  threshold,  he  is  startled  to 
find  Fame  as  commonplace  here  as  Notoriety  every 
where  else,  and  that  this  fifth-rate  city  should  have  the 
privilege  thus  to  commemorate  so  many  famous  men 
her  sons,  whose  claim  to  pre-eminence  the  whole  world 
would  concede.  Among  them  is  one  figure  before  which 
every  scholar,  every  man  who  has  been  touched  by  the 
tragedy  of  life,  lingers  with  reverential  pity.  The  hag 
gard  cheeks,  the  lips  clamped  together  in  unfaltering 
resolve,  the  scars  of  lifelong  battle,  and  the  brow  whose 
sharp  outline  seems  the  monument  of  final  victory,  — 
this,  at  least,  is  a  face  that  needs  no  name  beneath  it. 
This  is  he  who  among  literary  fames  finds  only  two 
that  for  growth  and  immutability  can  parallel  his  own. 
The  suffrages  of  highest  authority  would  now  place  him 
second  in  that  company  where  he  with  proud  humility 
took  the  sixth  place.* 

*  Inferno,  IV.  102. 


4  DANTE. 

Dante  (Durante,  by  contraction  Dante)  degli  Ali- 
gbieri  was  born  at  Florence  in  1265,  probably  during 
the  month  of  May.*  This  is  the  date  given  by  Boc 
caccio,  who  is  generally  followed,  though  he  makes  a 
blunder  in  saying,  sedendo  Urbano  quarto  nella  cattedra 
di  San  Pietro,  for  Urban  died  in  October,  1264.  Some, 
misled  by  an  error  in  a  few  of  the  early  manuscript 
copies  of  the  Divina  Commedia,  would  have  him  born 
five  years  earlier,  in  1260.  According  to  Arrivabene,f 
Sansovino  was  the  first  to  confirm  Boccaccio's  statement 
by  the  authority  of  the  poet  himself,  basing  his  argu 
ment  on  the  first  verse  of  the  Inferno,  — 

"  Nel  mezzo  del  cammin  di  nostra  vita"  ; 

the  average  age  of  man  having  been  declared  by  the 
Psalmist  to  be  seventy  years,  and  the  period  of  the  poet's 
supposed  vision  being  unequivocally  fixed  at  1300.  % 
Leonardo  Aretino  and  Manetti  add  their  testimony  to 
that  of  Boccaccio,  and  1265  is  now  universally  assumed 
as  the  true  date.  Voltaire,  §  nevertheless,  places  the 
poet's  birth  in  1260,  and  jauntily  forgives  Bayle  (who, 
he  says,  ecrivait  a  Rotterdam  currente  calamo  pour  son 
libraire)  for  having  been  right,  declaring  that  he  esteems 
him  neither  more  nor  less  for  having  made  a  mistake  of 
five  years.  Oddly  enough,  Voltaire  adopts  this  alleged 
blunder  of  five  years  on  the  next  page,  in  saying  that 
Dante  died  at  the  age  of  56,  though  he  still  more  oddly 

*  The  Nouvelle  Biographic  Generale  gives  May  8  as  his  birthday. 
This  is  a  mere  assumption,  for  Boccaccio  only  says  generally  May. 
The  indication  which  Daute  himself  gives  that  he  was  born  when  the 
sun  was  in  Gemini  would  give  a  range  from  about  the  middle  of  May 
to  about  the  middle  of  June,  so  that  the  8th  is  certainly  too  early. 

t  Secolo  di  Dante,  Udine  edition  of  1828,  Vol.  III.  Part  I.  p.  578. 

|  Arrivabene,  however,  is  wrong.  Boccaccio  makes  precisely  the 
same  reckoning  in  the  first  note  of  his  Commentary  (Bocc.  Comento, 
etc.,  Firenze,  1844,  Vol.  I.  pp.  32,  33). 

§  Diet.  Phil.,  art.  Dante. 


DANTE.  5 

omits  the  undisputed  date  of  his  death  (1321),  which 
would  have  shown  Bayle  to  be  right.  The  poet's  de 
scent  is  said  to  have  been  derived  from  a  younger  son 
of  the  great  Roman  family  of  the  Frangipani,  classed 
by  the  popular  rhyme  with  the  Orsini  and  Colonna  :  — 

"  Colonna,  Orsini,  e  Frangipani, 
Prendono  oggi  e  pagano  domani." 

That  his  ancestors  had  been  long  established  in  Florence 
is  an  inference  from  some  expressions  of  the  poet,  and 
from  their  dwelling  having  been  situated  in  the  more 
ancient  part  of  the  city.  The  most  important  fact  of 
the  poet's  genealogy  is,  that  he  was  of  mixed  race,  the 
Alighieri  being  of  Teutonic  origin.  Dante  was  born, 
as  he  himself  tells  us,*  when  the  sun  was  in  the  constel 
lation  Gemini,  and  it  has  been  absurdly  inferred,  from 
a  passage  in  the  Inferno*?  that  his  horoscope  was  drawn 
and  a  great  destiny  predicted  for  him  by  his  teacher, 
Brunette  Latini.  The  Ottimo  Comento  tells  us  that  the 
Twins  are  the  house  of  Mercury,  who  induces  in  men 
the  faculty  of  writing,  science,  and  of  acquiring  knowl 
edge.  This  is  worth  mentioning  as  characteristic  of 
the  age  and  of  Dante  himself,  with  whom  the  influence 
of  the  stars  took  the  place  of  the  old  notion  of  destiny.  J 
It  is  supposed,  from  a  passage  in  Boccaccio's  life  of 
Dante,  that  Alighiero  the  father  was  still  living  when, 
the  poet  was  nine  years  old.  If  so,  he  must  have  died 
soon  after,  for  Leonardo  Aretino,  who  wrote  with  origi 
nal  documents  before  him,  tells  us  that  Dante  lost  his 
father  while  yet  a  child.  This  circumstance  may  have 
been  not  without  influence  in  muscularizing  his  nature 
to  that  character  of  self-reliance  which  shows  itself  so 
constantly  and  sharply  during  his  after-life.  His  tutor 
was  Brunetto  Latini,  a  very  superior  man  (for  that  age), 
says  Aretino  parenthetically.  Like  Alexander  Gill,  he 

*  Paradise,  XXII.  f  Canto  XV.  J  Purgatorio,  XVI. 


6  DANTE. 

is  now  remembered  only  as  the  schoolmaster  of  a  great 
poet,  and  that  he  did  his  duty  well  may  be  inferred 
from  Dante's  speaking  of  him  gratefully  as  one  who  by 
times  "taught  him  how  man  eternizes  himself."  This, 
and  what  Villani  says  of  his  refining  the  Tuscan  idiom 
(for  so  we  understand  hisfarlt  scorti  in  bene  parlare*), 
are  to  be  noted  as  of  probable  influence  on  the  career 
of  his  pupil.  Of  the  order  of  Dante's  studies  nothing 
can  be  certainly  affirmed.  His  biographers^send  him  to 
Bologna,  Padua,  Paris,  Naples,  and  even  Oxford.  All 
are  doubtful,  Paris  and  Oxford  most  of  all,  and  the 
dates  utterly  undeterminable.  Yet  all  are  possible, 
nay,  perhaps  probable.  Bologna  and  Padua  we  should 
be  inclined  to  place  before  his  exile ;  Paris  and  Oxford, 
if  at  all,  after  it.  If  no  argument  in  favor  of  Paris  is 
to  be  drawn  from  his  Pape  Satan^  and  the  correspond 
ing  paix,  paix,  Sathan,  in  the  autobiography  of  Cellini, 
nor  from  the  very  definite  allusion  to  Doctor  Siger,J 
we  may  yet  infer  from  some  passages  in  the  Commedia 
that  his  wanderings  had  extended  even  farther ;  §  for 
it  would  not  be  hard  to  show  that  his  comparisons  and 
illustrations  from  outward  things  are  almost  invariably 
drawn  from  actual  eyesight.  As  to  the  nature  of  his 
studies,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  went  through 
the  trivium  (grammar,  dialectic,  rhetoric)  and  the  qua- 
drivium  (arithmetic,  music,  geometry,  and  astronomy)  of 
the  then  ordinary  university  course.  To  these  he  after 
ward  added  painting  (or  at  least  drawing,  —  designavo 
un  angelo  sopra  certe  tavolette\\),  theology,  and  medicine. 

*  Though  he  himself  preferred  French,  and  wrote  his  Tresor  in  that 
language  for  two  reasons,  "  F  una  perclte  noi  siamo  in  Frantia,  e 
F  ultra  perche  la  parlatura  francesca  e  piu  dilettevolee  piii  comune  che 
tuttili  altri  linguaggi.'1''  (Proemio,  sul  fine. ) 

t  Inferno,  Canto' VII.  J  Paradise,  Canto  X. 

§  See  especially  Inferno,  IX.  112  et  seq. ;  XII.  120  ;  XV.  4  et  seq.; 
XXXII.  25-30. 

||  Vit.  Nuov.  p.  61,  ed.  Pesaro,  1829. 


DAXTE.  7 

He  is  said  to  have  been  the  pupil  of  Cimabue,  and  was 
certainly  the  friend  of  Giotto,  the  designs  for  some  of 
whose  frescos  at  Assisi  and  elsewhere  have  been  wrongly 
attributed  to  him,  though  we  may  safely  believe  in  his 
helpful  comment  and  suggestion.  To  prove  his  love  of 
music,  the  episode  of  Casella  were  enough,  even  without 
Boccaccio's  testimony.  The  range  of  Dante's  study  and 
acquirement  would  be  encyclopedic  in  any  age,  but  at 
that  time  it  was  literally  possible  to  master  the  omne 
scibile,  and  he  seems  to  have  accomplished  it.  How  lofty 
his  theory  of  science  was,  is  plain  from  this  passage  in 
the  Convito  :  "  He  is  not  to  be  called  a  true  lover  of 
wisdom  (filosofo)  who  loves  it  for  the  sake  of  gain,  as  do 
lawyers,  physicians,  and  almost  all  churchmen  (li  reli- 
giosi),  who  study,  not  in  order  to  know,  but  to  acquire 
riches  or  advancement,  and  who  would  not  persevere  in 
study  should  you  give  them  what  they  desire  to  gain  by 

it And  it  may  be  said  that  (as  true  friendship 

between  men  consists  in  each  wholly  loving  the  other) 
the  true  philosopher  loves  every  part  of  wisdom,  and 
wisdom  every  part  of  the  philosopher,  inasmuch  as  she 
draws  all  to  herself,  and  allows  no  one  of  his  thoughts 
to  wander  to  other  things."  *  The  Convito  gives  us  a 
glance  into  Dante's  library.  We  find  Aristotle  (whom 
he  calls  the  philosopher,  the  master)  cited  seventy- 
six  times  ;  Cicero,  eighteen  ;  Albertus  Magnus,  seven  ; 
Boethius,  six  ;  Plato  (at  second-hand),  four ;  Aquinas, 
Avicenna,  Ptolemy,  the  Digest,  Lucan,  and  Ovid,  three 
each ;  Virgil,  Juvenal,  Statins,  Seneca,  and  Horace, 
twice  each  ;  and  Algazzali,  Alfrogan,  Augustine,  Livy, 
Orosius,  and  Homer  (at  second-hand),  once.  Of  Greek 
he  seems  to  have  understood  little  ;  of  Hebrew  and 
Arabic,  a  few  words.  But  it  was  not  only  in  the  closet 
and  from  books  that  Dante  received  his  education.  He 
«  Tratt.  III.  Cap.  XI. 


8  DANTE. 

acquired,  perhaps,  the  better  part  of  it  in  the  streets 
of  Florence,  and  later,  in  those  homeless  wanderings 
which  led  him  (as  he  says)  wherever  the  Italian 
tongue  was  spoken.  His  were  the  only  open  eyes  of 
that  century,  and,  as  nothing  escaped  them,  so  there 
is  nothing  that  was  not  photographed  upon  his  sen 
sitive  brain,  to  be  afterward  fixed  forever  in  the  Corn- 
media.  What  Florence  was  during  his  youth  and  man 
hood,  with  its  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines,  its  nobles  and 
trades,  its  Bianchi  and  Neri,  its  kaleidoscopic  revolu 
tions,  "  all  parties  loving  liberty  and  doing  their  best  to 
destroy  her,"  as  Voltaire  says,  it  would  be  beyond  our 
province  to  tell  even  if  we  could.  Foreshortened  as 
events  are  when  we  look  back  on  them  across  so  many 
ages,  only  the  upheavals  of  party  conflict  catching  the 
eye,  while  the  spaces  of  peace  between  sink  out  of  the 
view  of  history,  a  whole  century  seems  like  a  mere  wild 
chaos.  Yet  during  a  couple  of  such  centuries  the  ca 
thedrals  of  Florence,  Pisa,  and  Siena  got  built ;  Cimabue, 
Giotto,  Arnolfo,  the  Pisani,  Brunelleschi,  and  Ghiberti 
gave  the  impulse  to  modern  art,  or  brought  it  in  some 
of  its  branches  to  its  culminating  point ;  modern  litera 
ture  took  its  rise ;  commerce  became  a  science,  and  the 
middle  class  came  into  being.  It  was  a  time  of  fierce 
passions  and  sudden  tragedies,  of  picturesque  transitions 
and  contrasts.  It  found  Dante,  shaped  him  by  every 
experience  that  life  is  capable  of, —  rank,  ease,  love,  study, 
affairs,  statecraft,  hope,  exile,  hunger,  dependence,  de 
spair,  —  until  he  became  endowed  with  a  sense  of  the 
nothingness  of  this  world's  goods  possible  only  to  the 
rich,  and  a  knowledge  of  man  possible  only  to  the  poor. 
The  few  well-ascertained  facts  of  Dante's  life  may  be 
briefly  stated.  In  1274  occurred  what  we  may  call  his 
spiritual  birth,  the  awakening  in  him  of  the  imaginative 
faculty,  and  of  that  profounder  and  more  intense  con- 


DANTE.  9 

sciousness  which  springs  from  the  recognition  of  beauty 
through  the  antithesis  of  sex.  It  was  in  that  year  that 
he  first  saw  Beatrice  Portinari.  In  1289  he  was  present 
at  the  battle  of  Campaldino,  fighting  on  the  side  of  the 
Guelphs,  who  there  utterly  routed  the  Ghibellines,  and 
where,  he  says  characteristically  enough,  "  I  was  present, 
not  a  boy  in  arms,  and  where  I  felt  much  fear,  but  in 
the  end  the  greatest  pleasure,  from  the  various  changes 
of  the  fight."  *  In  the  same  year  he  assisted  at  the 
siege  and  capture  of  Caprona.t  In  1290  died  Beatrice, 
married  to  Simone  del  Bardi,  precisely  when  is  uncer 
tain,  but  before  1287,  as  appears  by  a  mention  of  her  in 
her  father's  will,  bearing  date  January  15  of  that  year. 
Dante's  own  marriage  is  assigned  to  various  years, 
ranging  from  1291  to  1294;  but  the  earlier  date  seems 
the  more  probable,  as  he  was  the  father  of  seven  children 
(the  youngest,  a  daughter,  named  Beatrice)  in  1301. 
His  wife  was  Gemma  dei  Donati,  and  through  her  Dante, 
whose  family,  though  noble,  was  of  the  lesser  nobility, 
became  nearly  connected  with  Corso  Donati,  the  head  of 
a  powerful  clan  of  the  grandi,  or  greater  nobles.  In 
1293  occurred  what  is  called  the  revolution  of  Gian 
Delia  Bella,  in  which  the  priors  of  the  trades  took  the 
power  into  their  own  hands,  and  made  nobility  a  dis 
qualification  for  office.  A  noble  was  defined  to  be  any 
one  who  counted  a  knight  among  his  ancestors,  and  thus 
the  descendant  of  Cacciaguida  was  excluded. 

Delia  Bella  was  exiled  in  1295,  but  the  nobles  did 
not  regain  their  power.  On  the  contrary,  the  citizens, 
having  all  their  own  way,  proceeded  to  quarrel  among 
themselves,  and  subdivided  into  the  popolani  grossi  and 
popolani  minuti,  or  greater  and  lesser  trades,  —  a  dis 
tinction  of  gentility  somewhat  like  that  between  whole- 

*  Letter  of  Dante,  now  lost,  cited  by  Aretino. 
t  Inferno,  XXI.  94. 

1* 


10  DANTE. 

sale  and  retail  tradesmen.  The  grandi  continuing  tur 
bulent,  many  of  the  lesser  nobility,  among  them  Dante, 
drew  over  to  the  side  of  the  citizens,  and  between  1297 
and  1300  there  is  found  inscribed  in  the  book  of  the 
physicians  and  apothecaries,  Dante  d'  Aldigkiero,  degli 
Aldiyhieri,  poeta  Florentine*  Professor  de  Vericourf 
thinks  it  necessary  to  apologize  for  this  lapse  on  the 
part  of  the  poet,  and  gravely  bids  us  take  courage,  nor 
think  that  Dante  was  ever  an  apothecary.  In  1300  we 
find  him  elected  one  of  the  priors  of  the  city.  In  order 
to  a  perfect  misunderstanding  of  everything  connected 
with  the  Florentine  politics  of  this  period,  one  has  only 
to  study  the  various  histories.  The  result  is  a  spectrum 
on  the  mind's  eye,  which  looks  definite  and  brilliant, 
but  really  hinders  all  accurate  vision,  as  if  from  too 
steady  inspection  of  a  Catharine-wheel  in  full  whirl.  A 
few  words,  however,  are  necessary,  if  only  to  make  the 
confusion  palpable.  The  rival  German  families  of  Welfs 
and  Weiblingens  had  given  their  names,  softened  into 
Guelfi  and  Ghibellini,  —  from  which  Gabriel  Harvey  J 
ingeniously,  but  mistakenly,  derives  elves  and  goblins, — 
to  two  parties  in  Northern  Italy,  representing  respec 
tively  the  adherents  of  the  pope  and  of  the  emperor, 
but  serving  very  well  as  rallying-points  in  all  manner  of 
intercalary  and  subsidiary  quarrels.  The  nobles,  espe 
cially  the  greater  ones,  —  perhaps  from  instinct,  per 
haps  in  part  from  hereditary  tradition,  as  being  more  or 
less  Teutonic  by  descent,  —  were  commonly  Ghibellines, 
or  Imperialists ;  the  bourgeoisie  were  very  commonly 
Guelphs,  or  supporters  of  the  pope,  partly  from  natural 
antipathy  to  the  nobles,  and  partly,  perhaps,  because  they 
believed  themselves  to  be  espousing  the  more  purely 

*  Balbo,  Vita  di  Dante,  Firenze,  1853,  p.  117. 
t  Life  and  Times  of  Dante,  London,  1858,  p.  80. 
J  Notes  to  Spenser's  "Shepherd's  Calendar." 


DANTE.  1 1 

Italian  side.  Sometimes,  however,  the  party  relation  of 
nobles  and  burghers  to  each  other  was  reversed,  but  the 
names  of  Guelphand  Ghibelline  always  substantially  rep 
resented  the  same  things.  The  family  of  Dante  had  been 
Guelphic,  and  we  have  seen  him  already  as  a  young 
man  serving  two  campaigns  against  the  other  party. 
But  no  immediate  question  as  between  pope  and  em 
peror  seems  then  to  have  been  pending ;  and  while  there 
is  no  evidence  that  he  was  ever  a  mere  partisan,  the 
reverse  would  be  the  inference  from  his  habits  and  char 
acter.  Just  before  his  assumption  of  the  priorate,  how 
ever,  a  new  complication  had  arisen.  A  family  feud, 
beginning  at  the  neighboring  city  of  Pistoja,  between 
the  Cancellieri  Neri  and  Cancellieri  Bianchi,*  had  ex 
tended  to  Florence,  where  the  Guelphs  took  the  part 
of  the  Neri  and  the  Ghibellines  of  the  Bianchi.t  The 
city  was  instantly  in  a  ferment  of  street  brawls,  as  act 
ors  in  one  of  which  some  of  the  Medici  are  incidentally 
named,  —  the  first  appearance  of  that  family  in  history. 
Both  parties  appealed  at  different  times  to  the  pope, 
who  sent  two  ambassadors,  first  a  bishop  and  then  a 
cardinal.  Both  pacificators  soon  flung  out  again  in  a 
rage,  after  adding  the  new  element  of  excommunication 
to  the  causes  of  confusion.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  these 
things  that  Dante  became  one  of  the  six  priors  (June, 
1300),  —  an  office  which  the  Florentines  had  made  bimes 
trial  in  its  tenure,  in  order  apparently  to  secure  at  least 
six  constitutional  chances  of  revolution  in  the  year.  He 
advised  that  the  leaders  of  both  parties  should  be  ban 
ished  to  the  frontiers,  which  was  forthwith  done ;  the 
ostracism  including  his  relative  Corso  Donati  among 

*  See  the  story  at  length  in  Balbo,  Vita  di  Dante,  Cap.  X. 

t  Thus  Foscolo.  Perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  at 
first  the  blacks  were  the  extreme. Guelphs,  and  the  whites  those  mod 
erate  Guelphs  inclined  to  make  terms  with  the  Ghibellines.  The  mat 
ter  is  obscure,  and  Balbo  contradicts  himself  about  it. 


12  DANTE. 

the  Neri,  and  his  most  intimate  friend  the  poet  Guido 
Cavalcanti  among  the  Bianchi.  They  were  all  permitted 
to  return  before  long  (but  after  Dante's  term  of  office 
was  over),  and  came  accordingly,  bringing  at  least  the 
Scriptural  allowance  of  "  seven  other  "  motives  of  mis 
chief  with  them.  Affairs  getting  worse  (1301),  the 
Neri,  with  the  connivance  of  the  pope  (Boniface  VIII.), 
entered  into  an  arrangement  with  Charles  of  Valois,  who 
was  preparing  an  expedition  to  Italy.  Dante  was  mean 
while  sent  on  an  embassy  to  Rome  (September,  1301, 
according  to  Arrivabene,*  but  probably  earlier)  by  the 
Bianchi,  who  still  retained  all  the  offices  at  Florence.  It 
is  the  tradition  that  he  said  in  setting  forth  :  "  If  I  go, 
who  remains  1  and  if  I  stay,  who  goes  1 "  Whether  true 
or  not,  the  story  implies  what  was  certainly  true,  that 
the  council  and  influence  of  Dante  were  of  great  weight 
with  the  more  moderate  of  both  parties.  On  October 
31,  1301,  Charles  took  possession  of  Florence  in  the 
interest  of  the  Neri.  Dante  being  still  at  Rome  (Janu 
ary  27,  1302),  sentence  of  exile  was  pronounced  against 
him  and  others,  with  a  heavy  fine  to  be  paid  within  two 
months ;  if  not  paid,  the  entire  confiscation  of  goods, 
and,  whether  paid  or  no,  exile ;  the  charge  against  him 
being  pecuniary  malversation  in  office.  The  fine  not 
paid  (as  it  coiild  not  be  without  admitting  the  justice 
of  the  charges,  which  Dante  scorned  even  to  deny),  in 
less  than  two  months  (March  10,  1302)  a  second  sen 
tence  was  registered,  by  which  he  with  others  was  con 
demned  to  be  burned  alive  if  taken  within  the  boun 
daries  of  the  republic,  f  From  this  time  the  life  of 

*  Secolo  di  Dante,  p.  654.  He  would  seem  to  have  been  in  Rome 
during  the  Jubilee  of  1300.  See  Inferno,  XVIII.  28  -  33. 

t  That  Dante  was  not  of  the  grandi,  or  great  nobles  (what  we  call 
grandees),  as  some  of  his  biographers  have  tried  to  make  out,  is  plain 
from  this  sentence,  where  his  name  appears  low  on  the  list  and  with 
no  ornamental  prefix,  after  half  a  dozen  domini.  Bayle,  however,  is 
equally  wrong  in  supposing  his  family  to  have  been  obscure. 


DANTE.  13 

Dante  becomes  semi-mythical,  and  for  nearly  every  date 
we  are  reduced  to  the  "  as  they  say  "  of  Herodotus.  He 
became  now  necessarily  identified  with  his  fellow-exiles 
(fragments  of  all  parties  united  by  common  wrongs  in  a 
practical,  if  not  theofetic,  Ghibellinism),  and  shared  in 
their  attempts  to  reinstate  themselves  by  force  of  arms. 
He  was  one  of  their  council  of  twelve,  but  withdrew 
from  it  on  account  of  the  unwisdom  of  their  measures. 
Whether  he  was  present  at  their  futile  assault  on  Flor 
ence  (July  22,  1304)  is  doubtful,  but  probably  he  was 
not.  From  the  Ottimo  Comento,  written  at  least  in 
part*  by  a  contemporary  as  early  as  1333,  we  learn  that 
Dante  soon  separated  himself  from  his  companions  in 
misfortune  with  mutual  discontents  and  recriminations.-}- 
During  the  nineteen  years  of  Dante's  exile,  it  would  be 
hard  to  say  where  he  was  not.  In  certain  districts  of 
Northern  Italy  there  is  scarce  a  village  that  has  not  its 
tradition  of  him,  its  sedia,  rocca,  spelonca,  or  torre  di 
Dante  ;  and  what  between  the  patriotic  complaisance  of 
some  biographers  overwilling  to  gratify  as  many  provin 
cial  vanities  as  possible,  and  the  pettishness  of  others 
anxious  only  to  snub  them,  the  confusion  becomes  hope 
less.!  After  his  banishment  we  find  some  definite  trace 
of  him  first  at  Arezzo  with  Uguccione  della  Faggiuola ; 
then  at  Siena ;  then  at  Verona  with  the  Scaligeri.  He 

*  See  Witte,  "  Quando  e  da  chi  sia  composto  1'  Ottimo  Comento," 
etc.  (Leipsic,  1847). 

t  Ott.  Com.  Parad.  XVII. 

J  The  loose  way  in  which  many  Italian  scholars  write  history  is  as 
amazing  as  it  is  perplexing.  For  example  :  Count  Balbo's  "Life  of 
Dante  "  was  published  originally  at  Turin,  in  1839.  In  a  note  (Lib.  I. 
Cap.  X. )  he  expresses  a  doubt  whether  the  date  of  Dante's  banishment 
should  not  be  1303,  and  inclines  to  think  it  should  be.  Meanwhile, 
it  seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  him  to  employ  some  one  to  look 
at  the  original  decree,  still  existing  in  the  archives.  Stranger  still, 
Le  Monnier,  reprinting  the  work  at  Florence  in  1853,  within  a  stone's- 
throw  of  the  document  itself,  and  with  full  permission  from  Balbo  to 
make  corrections,  leaves  the  matter  just  where  it  was. 


14  DANTE. 

himself  says  :  "  Through  almost  all  parts  -where  this 
language  [Italian]  is  spoken,  a  wanderer,  \vellnigh  a 
beggar,  I  have  gone,  showing  against  my  will  the  wound 
of  fortune.  Truly  I  have  been  a  vessel  without  sail 
or  rudder,  driven  to  diverse  ports,  estuaries,  and  shores 
by  that  hot  blast,  the  breath  of  grievous  poverty ;  and 
I  have  shown  myself  to  the  eyes  of  many  who  perhaps, 
through  some  fame  of  me,  had  imagined  me  in  quite 
other  guise,  in  whose  view  not  only  was  my  person 
debased,  but  every  work  of  mine,  whether  done  or  yet 
to  do,  became  of  less  account."  *  By  the  election  of 
the  emperor  Henry  VII.  (of  Luxemburg,  November, 
1 308),  and  the  news  of  his  proposed  expedition  into 
Italy,  the  hopes  of  Dante  were  raised  to  the  highest 
pitch.  Henry  entered  Italy,  October,  1310,  and  received 
the  iron  crown  of  Lombardy  at  Milan,  on  the  day  of 
Epiphany,  1311.  His  movements  being  slow,  and  his 
policy  undecided,  Dante  addressed  him  that  famous  let 
ter,  urging  him  to  crush  first  the  "  Hydra  and  Myrrha  " 
Florence,  as  the  root  of  all  the  evils  of  Italy  (April 
16,  1311).  To  this  year  we  must  probably  assign  the 
new  decree  by  which  the  seigniory  of  Florence  recalled  a 
portion  of  the  exiles,  excepting  Dante,  however,  among 
others, 'by  name.t  The  undertaking  of  Henry,  after  an 
ill-directed  dawdling  of  two  years,  at  last  ended  in  his 
death  at  Buonconvento  (August  24,  1313;  Carlyle  says 
wrongly  September) ;  poisoned,  it  was  said,  in  the  sacra 
mental  bread,  by  a  Dominican  friar,  bribed  thereto  by 
Florence.^  The  story  is  doubtful,  the  more  as  Dante 

*  Convito,  Tratt.  I.  Cap.  III. 

t  Macchiavelli  is  the  authority  for  this,  and  is  carelessly  cited  in 
the  preface  to  the  Udine  edition  of  the  "  Codex  Bartolinianus "  as 
placing  it  in  1312.  Macchiavelli  does  no  such  thing,  but  expressly  im 
plies  an  earlier  date,  perhaps  1310.  (See  Macch.  Op.  ed.  Baretti, 
London,  1772,  Vol.  I.  p.  60.) 

}  See  Carlyle's  "  Frederic,"  Vol.  I.  p.  147. 


DANTE.  15 

nowhere  alludes  to  it,  as  he  certainly  would  have  done 
had  he  heard  of  it.  According  to  Balbo,  Dante  spent 
the  time  from  August,  1313,  to  November,  1314,  in  Pisa 
and  Lucca,  and  then  took  refuge  at  Verona,  with  Can 
Grande  della  Scala  (whom  Voltaire  calls,  drolly  enough, 
le  grand-can  de  Verone,  as  if  he  had  been  a  Tartar), 
where  he  remained  till  1318.  Foscolo  with  equal  posi- 
tiveness  sends  him,  immediately  after  the  death  of 
Henry,  to  Guido  da  Polenta  *  at  Ravenna,  and  makes 
him  join  Can  Grande  only  after  the  latter  became  cap 
tain  of  the  Ghibelline  league  in  December,  1318.  In 
1316  the  government  of  Florence  set  forth  a  new  decree 
allowing  the  exiles  to  return  on  conditions  of  fine  and 
penance.  Dante  rejected  the  offer  (by  accepting  which 
his  guilt  would  have  been  admitted),  in  a  letter  still 
hot,  after  these  five  centuries,  with  indignant  scorn. 
"  Is  this  then  the  glorious  return  of  Dante  Alighieri  to 
his  country  after  nearly  three  lustres  of  suffering  and 
exile  1  Did  an  innocence,  patent  to  all,  merit  this  1  — 
this,  the  perpetual  sweat  and  toil  of  study  1  Far  from 
a  man,  the  housemate  of  philosophy,  be  so  rash  and 
earthen-hearted  a  humility  as  to  allow  himself  to  be 
offered  up  bound  like  a  school-boy  or  a  criminal  !  Far 
from  a  man,  the  preacher  of  justice,  to  pay  those  who 
have  done  him  wrong  as  for  a  favor !  This  is  not  the 
way  of  returning  to  my  country  ;  but  if  another  can  be 
found  that  shall  not  derogate  from  the  fame  and  honor 
of  Dante,  that  I  will  enter  on  with  no  lagging  steps. 
For  if  by  none  such  Florence  may  be  entered,  by  me 
then  never  !  Can  I  not  everywhere  behold  the  mirrors 
of  the  sun  and  stars  1  speculate  on  sweetest  truths 

*  A  mistake,  for  Guido  did  not  become  lord  of  Ravenna  till  several 
years  later.  But  Boccaccio  also  assigns  1313  as  the  date  of  Dante's 
withdrawal  to  that  city,  and  his  first  protector  may  have  been  one  of 
the  other  Polentani  to  whom  Guido  (surnamed  Novello,  or  the  Younger ; 
his  grandfather  having  borne  the  same  name)  succeeded. 


16  DANTE. 

under  any  sky  without  first  giving  myself  up  inglorious, 
nay,  ignominious,  to  the  populace  and  city  of  Florence  1 
Nor  shall  I  want  for  bread."  Dionisi  puts  the  date  of 
this  letter  in  1315.*  He  is  certainly  wrong,  for  the  de 
cree  is  dated  December  11,  1316.  Foscolo  places  it  in 
1316,  Troya  early  in  1317,  and  both  may  be  right,  as 
the  year  began  March  25.  Whatever  the  date  of  Dante's 
visit  to  Voltaire's  great  Khan  t  of  Verona,  or  the  length 
of  his  stay  with  him,  may  have  been,  it  is  certain  that 
he  was  in  Ravenna  in  1320,  and  that,  on  his  return 
thither  from  an  embassy  to  Venice  (concerning  which  a 
curious  letter,  forged  probably  by  Doni,  is  extant),  he 
died  on  September  14,  1321  (13th,  according  to  others). 
He  was  buried  at  Ravenna  under  a  monument'  built  by 
his  friend,  Guido  Novello.]:  Dante  is  said  to  have  dic- 

*  Under  this  date  (1315)  a  4th  condemnatio  against  Dante  is  men 
tioned  facto,  in  anno  1315  de  mense  Octobns  per  D.  Rainerium,  D. 
Zachario  de  Urbeveteri,  dim  et  tune  vicarium  regium  civitatis  Floren 
tine,  etc.  It  is  found  recited  in  the  decree  under  which  in  1342  Jacopo 
di  Dante  redeemed "  a  portion  of  his  father's  property,  to  wit :  Una 
possessione  cum  vinea  et  cum  domibus  super  ea,  combustis  et  non  combus 
tis,  posita  in  populo  S.  Miniatis  de  Pagnlao.  In  the  domibus  combustis 
we  see  the  blackened  traces  of  Dante's  kinsman  by  marriage,  Corso 
Donati,  who  plundered  and  burnt  the  houses  of  the  exiled  Bianchi, 
during  the  occupation  of  the  city  by  Charles  of  Valois.  (See  "  De  Ro- 
manis,"  notes  on  Tiraboschi's  Life  of  Dante,  in  the  Florence  ed.  of 
1830,  Vol.  V.  p.  119.) 

t  Voltaire's  blunder  has  been  made  part  of  a  serious  theory  by 
Mons.  E.  Aroux,  who  gravely  assiires  us  that,  during  the  Middle  Ages, 
Tartar  was  only  a  cryptonym  by  which  heretics  knew  each  other, 
and  adds  :  II  ri'y  a  done  pas  trop  a  s'etonner  des  noms  bizarres  de 
Mastino  et  de  Cane  donnes  d  ces  Delia  Scala.  (Dante,  heretique,  revo- 
lutionnaire,  et  socialiste,  Paris,  1854,  pp.  118-120.) 

|  If  no  monument  at  all  was  built  by  Guido,  as  is  asserted  by 
Balbo  (Vita,  I.  Lib.  II.  Cap.  XVII. ),  whom  De  Vericour  copies  without 
question,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  preservation  of  the  original 
epitaph  replaced  by  Cardinal  Bembo  when  he  built  the  new  tomb,  in 
1483.  Bembo's  own  inscription  implies  an  already  existing  monument, 
and,  if  in  disparaging  terms,  yet  epitaphial  Latin  verses  are  not  to  be 
taken  too  literally,  considering  the  exigencies  of  that  branch  of  literary 
ingenuity.  The  doggerel  Latin  has  been  thought  by  some  unworthy  of 


DANTE.  17 

tated  the  following  inscription  for  it  on  his  death 
bed:— 

JVEA  MONARCHIC  SVPEKOS   PHLEGETHONTA  LACVSQVE 
LVSTRANDO    CECINI  VOLVERVNT   FATA   QVOVSQVE 
SED   QVIA  PARS   CESSIT   MELIORIBVS   HOSPITA    CASTRIS 
AVCTOREMQVE   SWM  PETIIT  FEL1CIOR  ASTRIS 

Hie  CLAVDOR  DANTES  PATRIIS  EXTORRIS  AB  ORIS 

QVEM  GENYIT  PARVI   FLORENTIA   MATER   AMORIS. 

Of  which  this  rude  paraphrase  may  serve  as  a  transla 
tion  :  — 

The  rights  of  Monarchy,  the  Heavens,  the  Stream  of  Fire,  the  Pit, 
In  vision  seen,  I  sang  as  far  as  to  the  Fates  seemed  fit ; 
But  since  rny  soul,  an  alien  here,  hath  flown  to  nobler  wars, 
And,  happier  now,  hath  gone  to  seek  its  Maker  'mid  the  stars, 
Here  am  I  Dante  shut,  exiled  from  the  ancestral  shore, 
Whom  Florence,  the  of  all  least-loving  mother,  bore.* 

If  these  be  not  the  words  of  Dante,  what  is  internal 
evidence  worth  1  The  indomitably  self-reliant  man,  loyal 
first  of  all  to  his  most  unpopular  convictions  (his  very 
host,  Guido,  being  a  Guelph),  puts  his  Ghibellinism 
(jura  monarchic)  in  the  front.  The  man  whose  whole 

Dante,  as  Shakespeare's  doggerel  English  epitaph  has  been  thought  un 
worthy  of  him.  In  both  cases  the  rudeness  of  the  verses  seems  to  us  a 
proof  of  authenticity.  An  enlightened  posterity  with  unlimited  super 
latives  at  command,  and  in  an  age  when  stone-cutting  was  cheap,  would 
have  aimed  at  something  more  befitting  the  occasion.  It  is  certain,  at 
least  in  Dante's  case,  that  Cardinal  Bembo  would  never  have  inserted 
in  the  very  first  words  an  allusion  to  the  De  Monarchia,  a  book  long 
before  condemned  as  heretical. 

*  We  have  translated  lacusque  by  "the  Pit,"  as  being  the  nearest 
English  correlative.  Dante  probably  meant  by  it  the  several  circles 
of  his  Hell,  narrowing,  one  beneath  the  other,  to  the  centre.  As  a  curi 
ous  specimen  of  English  we  subjoin  Professor  de  Vericour's  transla 
tion  :  ''  I  have  sang  the  rights  of  monarchy  ;  I  have  sang,  in  exploring 
them,  the  abode  of  God,  the  Phlegethon  and  the  impure  lakes,  as  long 
as  destinies  have  permitted.  But  as  the  part  of  myself,  which  was 
only  passing,  returns  to  better  fields,  and  happier,  returned  to  his 
Maker,  I,  Dante,  exiled  from  the  regions  of  fatherland,  I  arn  laid  here, 
I,  to  whom  Florence  gave  birth,  a  mother  who  experienced  but  a  feeble 
love."  (The  Life  and  Times  of  Dante,  London,  1858,  p.  208.) 

B 


18  DANTE. 

life,  like  that  of  selected  souls  always,  had  been  a  war 
fare,  calls  heaven  another  camp,  —  a  better  one,  thank 
God  !  The  wanderer  of  so  many  years  speaks  of  his  soul 
as  a  guest,  — glad  to  be  gone,  doubtless.  The  exile, 
whose  sharpest  reproaches  of  Florence  are  always  those 
of  an  outraged  lover,  finds  it  bitter  that  even  his  uncon 
scious  bones  should  lie  in  alien  soil. 

Giovanni  Villani,  the  earliest  authority,  and  a  con 
temporary,  thus  sketches  him  :  "  This  man  was  a  great 
scholar  in  almost  every  science,  though  a  layman ;  was 
a  most  excellent  poet,  philosopher,  and  rhetorician  ;  per 
fect,  as  well  in  composing  and  versifying  as  in  harang 
uing  ;  a  most  noble  speaker This  Dante,  on  ac 
count  of  his  learning,  was  a  little  haughty,  and  shy,  and 
disdainful,  and  like  a  philosopher  almost  ungracious, 
knew  not  well  how  to  deal  with  unlettered  folk."  Ben- 
venuto  da  Imola  tells  us  that  he  was  very  abstracted,  as 
we  may  well  believe  of  a  man  who  carried  the  Commedia 
in  his  brain.  Boccaccio  paints  him  in  this  wise  :  "  Our 
poet  was  of  middle  height ;  his  face  was  long,  his  nose 
aquiline,  his  jaw  large,  and  the  lower  lip  protruding 
somewhat  beyond  the  upper ;  a  little  stooping  in  the 
shoulders ;  his  eyes  rather  large  than  small ;  dark  of 
complexion ;  his  hair  and  beard  thick,  crisp,  and  black ; 
and  his  countenance  always  sad  and  thoughtful.  His 
garments  were  always  dignified  ;  the  style  such  as  suited 
ripeness  of  years ;  his  gait  was  grave  and  gentlemanlike  ; 
and  his  bearing,  whether  public  or  private,  wonderfully 
composed  and  polished.  In  meat  and  drink  he  was 
most  temperate,  nor  was  ever  any  more  zealous  in  study 
or  whatever  other  pursuit.  Seldom  spake  he,  save 
when  spoken  to,  though  a  most  eloquent  person.  In 
his  youth  he  delighted  especially  in  music  and  sing 
ing,  and  was  intimate  with  almost  all  the  singers  and 
musicians  of  his  day.  He  was  much  inclined  to  soli- 


DANTE.  19 

tude,  and  familiar  with  few,  and  most  assiduous  in  study 
as  far  as  he  could  find  time  for  it.  Dante  was  also  of 
marvellous  capacity  and  the  most  tenacious  memory." 
Various  anecdotes  of  him  are  related  by  Boccaccio, 
Sacchetti,  and  others,  none  of  them  verisimilar,  and 
some  of  them  at  least  fifteen  centuries  old  when  re 
vamped.  Most  of  them  are  neither  veri  nor  ben  trovati. 
One  clear  glimpse  we  get  of  him  from  the  Ottimo  Co- 
mento,  the  author  of  which  says  :  *  "I,  the  writer,  heard 
Dante  say  that  never  a  rhyme  had  led  him  to  say  other 
than  he  would,  but  that  many  a  time  and  oft  (molte  e 
spesse  volte)  he  had  made  words  say  for  him  what  they 
were  not  wont  to  express  for  other  poets."  That  is  the 
only  sincere  glimpse  we  get  of  the  living,  breathing, 
word-compelling  Dante. 

Looked  at  outwardly,  the  life  of  Dante  seems  to  have 
been  an  utter  and  disastrous  failure.  What  its  inward 
satisfactions  must  have  been,  we,  with  the  Paradiso  open 
before  us,  can  form  some  faint  conception.  To  him, 
longing  with  an  intensity  which  only  the  word  Dan- 
tesque  will  express  to  realize  an  ideal  upon  earth,  and 
continually  baffled  and  misunderstood,  the  far  greater 
part  of  his  matiire  life  must  have  been  labor  and  sor 
row.  We  can  see  how  essential  all  that  sad  experience 
was  to  him,  can  understand  why  all  the  fairy  stories 
hide  the  luck  in  the  ugly  black  casket ;  but  to  him, 
then  and  there,  how  seemed  it  1 

Thou  shalt  relinquish  everything  of  thee, 
Beloved  most  dearly  ;  this  that  arrow  is 
Shot  from  the  bow  of  exile  first  of  all ; 
And  thou  shalt  prove  how  salt  a  savor  hath 
The  bread  of  others,  and  how  hard  a  path 
To  climb  and  to  descend  the  stranger's  stairs  !* 

Come  sa  di  sale  !     Who  never  wet  his  bread  with  tears, 

»  Inferno,  X.  85. 
t  Paradiso,  XVII. 


20  DANTE. 

says  Goethe,  knows  ye  not,  ye  heavenly  powers  !  Our 
nineteenth  century  made  an  idol  of  the  noble  lord  who 
broke  his  heart  in  verse  once  every  six  months,  but  the 
fourteenth  was  lucky  enough  to  produce  and  not  to  make 
an  idol  of  that  rarest  earthly  phenomenon,  a  man  of 
genius  who  could  hold  heartbreak  at  bay  for  twenty 
years,  and  would  not  let  himself  die  till  he  had  done 
his  task.  At  the  end  of  the  Vita  Nuova,  his  first  work, 
Dante  wrote  down  that  remarkable  aspiration  that  God 
would  take  him  to  himself  after  he  had  written  of  Bea 
trice  such  things  as  were  never  yet  written  of  woman. 
It  was  literally  fulfilled  when  the  Commedia  was  finished 
twenty-five  years  later.  Scarce  was  Dante  at  rest  in  his 
grave  when  Italy  felt  instinctively  that  this  was  her 
great  man.  Boccaccio  tells  us  that  in  1329  *  Cardinal 
Poggetto  (du  Poiet)  caused  Dante's  treatise  De  Monarchid 
to  be  publicly  burned  at  Bologna,  and  proposed  further 
to  dig  up  and  burn  the  bones  of  the  poet  at  Ravenna, 
as  having  been  a  heretic ;  but  so  much  opposition  was 
roused  that  he  thought  better  of  it.  Yet  this  was  dur 
ing  the  pontificate  of  the  Frenchman,  John  XXIL,  the 
reproof  of  whose  simony  Dante  puts  in  the  mouth  o*f 
St.  Peter,  who  declares  his  seat  vacant,t  whose  damna 
tion  the  poet  himself  seems  to  prophesy,!  and  against 
whose  election  he  had  endeavored  to  persuade  the  car 
dinals,  in  a  vehement  letter.  In  1350  the  republic  of 
Florence  voted  the  sum  of  ten  golden  florins  to  be  paid 
by  the  hands  of  Messer  Giovanni  Boccaccio  to  Dante's 
daughter  Beatrice,  a  nun  in  the  convent  of  Santa  Chiara 
at  Ravenna.  In  1396  Florence  voted  a  monument,  and 
begged  in  vain  for  the  metaphorical  ashes  of  the  man 

*  He  says  after  the  return  of  Louis  of  Bavaria  to  Germany,  which 
took  place  in  that  year.     The  De  Monarchia  was  afterward  condemned 
by  the  Council  of  Trent. 
Paradiso,  XXVII. 

t  Inferno,  XI. 


DANTE.  21 

of  whom  she  had  threatened  to  make  literal  cinders  if 
she  could  catch  him  alive.  In  1429  *  she  begged  again, 
but  Ravenna,  a  dead  city,  was  tenacious  of  the  dead 
poet.  In  1519  Michel  Angclo  would  have  built  the 
monument,  but  Leo  X.  refused  to  allow  the  sacred  dust 
to  be  removed.  Finally,  in  1829,  five  hxmdred  and  eight 
years  after  the  death  of  Dante,  Florence  got  a  cenotaph 
fairly  built  in  Santa  Croce  (by  Ricci),  ugly  beyond  even 
the  usual  lot  of  such,  with  three  colossal  figures  on  it, 
Dante  in  the  middle,  with  Italy  on  one  side  and  Poesy 
on  the  other.  The  tomb  at  Ravenna,  built  originally  in 
1483,  by  Cardinal  Bembo,  was  restored  by  Cardinal 
Corsi  in  1692,  and  finally  rebuilt  in  its  present  form  by 
Cardinal  Gonzaga,  in  1780,  ail  three  of  whom  com 
memorated  themselves  in  Latin  inscriptions.  It  is  a 
little  shrine  covered  with  a  dome,  not  unlike  the  tomb 
of  a  Mohammedan  saint,  and  is  now  the  chief  magnet 
which  draws  foreigners  and  their  gold  to  Ravenna.  The 
valet  de  place  says  that  Dante  is  not  buried  under  it,  but 
beneath  the  pavement  of  the  street  in  front  of  it,  where 
also,  he  says,  he  saw  my  Lord  Byron  kneel  and  weep. 
Like  everything  in  Ravenna,  it  is  dirty  and  neglected. 

In  1373  (August  9)  Florence  instituted  a  chair  of 
the  Divina  Gommedia,  and  Boccaccio  was  named  first 
professor.  He  accordingly  began  his  lectures  on  Sun 
day,  October  3,  following,  but  his  comment  was  broken 
off  abruptly  at  the  17th  verse  of  the  17th  canto  of  the 
Inferno  by  the  illness  which  ended  in  his  death,  Decem 
ber  21,  1375.  Among  his  successors  were  Filippo  Villani 
and  Filelfo.  Bologna  was  the  first  to  follow  the  exam 
ple  of  Florence,  Benvenuto  da  Imola  having  begun  his 
lectures,  according  to  Tiraboschi,  so  early  as  1375. 
Chairs  were  established  also  at  Pisa,  Venice,  Pia- 
cenza,  and  Milan  before  the  close  of  the  century.  The 
*  See  the  letter  in  Gaye,  Carteggio  ihedito  d'  artisti,  Vol.  I.  p.  123. 


22  DANTE.      .    ' 

lectures  were  delivered  in  the  churches  and  on  feast- 
days,  which  shows  their  popular  character.  Balbo 
reckons  (but  this  is  guess-work)  that  the  MS.  copies 
of  the  Divina  Commedia  made  during  the  fourteenth 
century,  and  now  existing  in  the  libraries  of  Europe,  are 
more  numerous  than  those  of  all  other  works,  ancient 
and  modern,  made  during  the  same  period.  Between 
the  invention  of  printing  and  the  year  1 500  more  than 
twenty  editions  were  published  in  Italy,  the  earliest  in 
1472.  During  the  sixteenth  century  there  were  forty 
editions  ;  during  the  seventeenth,  —  a  period,  for  Italy, 
of  sceptical  dilettanteism,  —  only  three ;  during  the  eigh 
teenth,  thirty-four  ;  and  already,  during  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth,  at  least  eighty.  The  first  translation  was 
into  Spanish,  in  1428.*  M.  St.  Ren6  Taillandier  says 
that  the  Commedia  was  condemned  by  the  inquisition  in 
Spain ;  but  this  seems  too  general  a  statement,  for,  accord 
ing  to  Foscolo,t  it  was  the  commentary  of  Landino  and 
Vellutello,  and  a  few  verses  in  the  Inferno  and  Paradiso, 
which  were  condemned.  The  first  French  translation 
was  that  of  Grangier,  1596,  but  the  study  of  Dante 
struck  no  root  there  till  the  present  century.  Rivarol, 
who  translated  the  Inferno  in  1783,  was  the  first  French 
man  who  divined  the  wonderful  force  and  vitality  of  the 
Commedia.  J  The  expressions  of  Voltaire  represent  very 
well  the  average  opinion  of  cultivated  persons  in  re 
spect  of  Dante  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
He  says  :  "  The  Italians  call  him  divine  ;  but  it  is  a 
hidden  divinity;  few  people  understand  his  oracles. 
He  has  commentators,  which,  perhaps,  is  another  reason 
for  his  not  being  understood.  His  reputation  will  go  on 

*  St.  Rene  Taillandier,  in  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  December  1, 
1856. 

t  Dante,  Vol.  IV.  p.  116. 
t  Ste.  Beuve,  Causeries  du  Lundi,  Tonie  XI.  p.  169. 


DANTE.  23 

increasing,  because  scarce  anybody  reads  him."  *  To 
Father  Bettinelli  he  writes  :  "  I  estimate  highly  the 
courage  with  which  you  have  dared  to  say  that  Dante 
was  a  madman  and  his  work  a  monster."  But  he  adds, 
what  shows  that  Dante  had  his  admirers  even  in  that 
flippant  century :  "  There  are  found  among  us,  and  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  people  who  strive  to  admire 
imaginations  so  stupidly  extravagant  and  barbarous."  t 
Elsewhere  he  says  that  the  Commedia  was  "  an  odd  poem, 
but  gleaming  with  natural  beauties,  a  work  in  which  the 
author  rose  in  parts  above  the  bad  taste  of  his  age  and 
his  subject,  and  full  of  passages  written  as  purely  as  if 
they  had  been  of  the  time  of  Ariosto  and  Tasso."  {  It 
is  curious  to  see  this  antipathetic  fascination  which 
Dante  exercised  over  a  nature  so  opposite  to  his -own. 
At  the  beginning  of  this  century  Chateaubriand 
speaks  of  Dante  with  vague  commendation,  evidently 
from  a  very  superficial  acquaintance,  and  that  only 
with  the  Inferno,  probably  from  Rivarol's  version.  § 
Since  then  there  have  been  four  or  five  French  versions 
in  prose  or  verse,  including  one  by  Lameunais.  But 
the  austerity  of  Dante  will  not  condescend  to  the  con 
ventional  elegance  which  makes  the  charm  of  French, 
and  the  most  virile  of  poets  cannot  be  adequately  ren 
dered  in  the  most  feminine  of  languages.  Yet  in  the 
works  of  Fauriel,  Ozanam,  Ampere,  and  Villemain, 
France  has  given  a  greater  impulse  to  the  study  of 
Dante  than  any  other  country  except  Germany.  Into 
Germany  the  Commedia  penetrated  later.  How  utterly 
Dante  was  unknown  there  in  the  sixteenth  century  is 
plain  from  a  passage  in  the  "  Vanity  of  the  Arts  and 

*  Diet.  Phil.,  art.  Dante. 

t  Corresp.  gen.,  (Euvres,  Tome  LVTI.  pp.  80,  81. 

|  Essai  sur  les  mceurs,  GEuvres,  Tome  XVII.  pp.  371,  372. 

§  Genie  du  Christianisme,  Cap.  IV. 


24  DANTE. 

Sciences  "  of  Cornelius  Agrippa,  where  he  is  spoken  of 
among  the  authors  of  lascivious  stories  :  "  There  have 
been  many  of  these  historical  pandars,  of  which  some 
of  obscure  fame,  as  ^Eneas  Sylvius,  Dantes,  and  Pe 
trarch,  Boccace,  Pontanus,"  etc.*  The  first  German 
translation  was  that  of  Kannegiesser  (1809).  Versions 
by  Streckfuss,  Kopisch,  and  Prince  John  (late  king)  of 
Saxony  followed.  Goethe  seems  never  to  have  given 
that  attention  to  Dante  which  his  ever-alert  intelligence 
might  have  been  expected  to  bestow  on  so  imposing  a 
moral  and  aesthetic'  phenomenon.  Unless  the  conclusion 
of  the  second  part  of  "  Faust "  be  an  inspiration  of  the 
Paradiso,  we  remember  no  adequate  word  from  him  on 
this  theme.  His  remarks  on  one  of  the  German  trans 
lations  are  brief,  dry,  and  without  that  breadth  which 
comes  only  of  thorough  knowledge  and  sympathy.  But 
German  scholarship  and  constructive  criticism,  through 
Witte,  Kopisch,  Wegele,  Ruth,  and  others,  have  been 
of  pre-eminent  service  in  deepening  the  understanding 
and  facilitating  the  study  of  the  poet.  In  England  the 
first  recognition  of  Dante  is  by  Chaucer  in  the  "  Hugeliu 
of  Pisa "  of  the  "  Monkes  Tale,"  f  and  an  imitation  of 
the  opening  verses  of  the  third  canto  of  the  Inferno 
("  Assembly  of  Foules").  In  1417  Giovanni  da  Serra- 
valle,  bishop  of  Fermo,  completed  a  Latin  prose  trans 
lation  of  the  Commedia,  a  copy  of  which,  as  he  made  it 
at  the  request  of  two  English  bishops  whom  he  met  at 
the  council  of  Constance,  was  doubtless  sent  to  England. 
Later  we  find  Dante  now  and  then  mentioned,  but  evi- 

*  Ed.  Lond.  1684,  p.  199. 

t  It  is  worth  notice,  as  a  proof  of  Chaucer's  critical  judgment,  that 
he  calls  Dante  "the  great  poet  of  Itaille,"  while  in  the  "Clerke's 
Tale"  he  speaks  of  Petrarch  as  a  "worthy  clerk,"  as  "the  laureat 
poete"  (alluding  to  the  somewhat  sentimental  ceremony  at  Rome), 
and  says  that  his 

"  Rhetorike  sweete 
Enlumined  all  Itaille  of  poetry." 


DANTE.  25 

dently  from  hearsay  only,*  till  the  time  of  Spenser,  who, 
like  Milton  fifty  years  later,  shows  that  he  had  read  his 
works  closely.  Thenceforward  for  more  than  a  century 
Dante  became  a  mere  name,  used  without  meaning  by 
literary  sciolists.  Lord  Chesterfield  echoes  Voltaire,  and 
Dr.  Drake  in  his  "  Literary  Hours  "  f  could  speak  of 
Darwin's  "  Botanic  Garden  "  as  showing  the  "  wild  and 
terrible  sublimity  of  Dante  "  !  The  first  complete  Eng 
lish  translation  was  by  Boyd,  —  of  the  Inferno  in  1 785, 
of  the  whole  poem  in  1802.  There  have  been  eight 
other  complete  translations,  beginning  with  Gary's  in 
1814,  six  since  1850,  beside  several  of  the  Inferno  singly. 
Of  these  that  of  Longfellow  is  the  best.  It  is  only  with 
in  the  last  twenty  years,  however,  that  the  study  of 
Dante,  in  any  true  sense,  became  at  all  general.  Even 
Coleridge  seems  to  have  been  familiar  only  with  the  In 
ferno.  In  America  Professor  Ticknor  was  the  first  to 
devote  a  special  course  of  illustrative  lectui'es  to  Dante ; 
he  was  followed  by  Longfellow,  whose  lectures,  illus 
trated  by  admirable  translations,  are  remembered  with 
grateful  pleasure  by  many  who  were  thus  led  to  learn 
the  full  significance  of  the  great  Christian  poet.  A  trans 
lation  of  the  Inferno  into  quatrains  by  T.  W.  Parsons 
ranks  with  the  best  for  spirit,  faithfulness,  and  elegance. 
In  Denmark  and  Russia  translations  of  the  Inferno  have 
been  published,  beside  separate  volumes  of  comment  and 
illustration.  We  have  thus  sketched  the  steady  growth 
of  Dante's  fame  and  influence  to  a  universality  unparal 
leled  except  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare,  pei'haps  more 
remarkable  if  we  consider  the  abstruse  and  mystical  na 
ture  of  his  poetry.  It  is  to  be  noted  as  characteristic 

*  It  is  possible  that  Sackville  may  have  read  the  Inferno,  and  it  is 
certain  that  Sir  John  Harrington  had.  See  the  preface  to  his  transla 
tion  of  the  Orlando  Furioso. 

t  Second  edition,  180Q. 
2 


26  DANTE. 

that  the  veneration  of  Dantophilists  for  their  master  is 
that  of  disciples  for  their  saint.  Perhaps  no  other  man 
could  have  called  forth  such  an  expression  as  that  of 
Ruskin,  that  "  the  central  man  of  all  the  world,  as  rep 
resenting  in  perfect  balance  the  imaginative,  moral,  and 
intellectual  faculties,  all  at  their  highest,  is  Dante." 

The  first  remark  to  be  made  upon  the  writings  of 
Dante  is  that  they  are  all  (with  the  possible  exception 
of  the  treatise  De  Vulgari  Eloquio)  autobiographic,  and 
that  all  of  them,  including  that,  are  parts  of  a  mutually 
related  system,  of  which  the  central  point  is  the  individ 
uality  and  experience  of  the  poet.  In  the  Vita  Nuova 
he  recounts  the  story  of  his  love  for  Beatrice  Portinari, 
showing  how  his  grief  for  her  loss  turned  his  thoughts 
first  inward  upon  his  own  consciousness,  and,  failing  all 
help  there,  gradually  upward  through  philosophy  to  re 
ligion,  and  so  from  a  world  of  shadows  to  one  of  eternal 
substances.  It  traces  with  exquisite  unconsciousness  the 
gradual  but  certain  steps  by  which  memory  and  imag 
ination  transubstantiated  the  woman  of  flesh  and  blood 
into  a  holy  ideal,  combining  in  one  radiant  symbol 
of  sorrow  and  hope  that  faith  which  is  the  instinctive 
refuge  of  unavailing  regret,  that  grace  of  God  which 
higher  natures  learn  to  find  in  the  trial  which  passeth 
all  understanding,  and  that  'perfect  womanhood,  the 
dream  of  youth  and  the  memory  of  maturity,  which 
beckons  toward  the  forever  unattainable.  As  a  con 
tribution  to  the  physiology  of  genius,  no  other  book  is 
to  be  compared  with  the  Vita  Nuova.  It  is  more  im 
portant  to  the  understanding  of  Dante  as  a  poet  than 
any  other  of  his  works.  It  shows  him  (and  that  in  the 
midst  of  affairs  demanding  practical  ability  and  pres 
ence  of  mind)  capable  of  a  depth  of  contemplative 
abstraction,  equalling  that  of  a  Soofi  who  has  passed 
the  fourth  step  of  initiation.  It  enables  us  in  some 


DANTE.  27 

sort  to  see  how,  from  being  the  slave  of  his  imagina 
tive  faculty,  he  rose  by  self-culture  and  force  of  will  to 
that  mastery  of  it  which  is  art.  We  comprehend  the 
Commedia  better  when  we  know  that  Dante  could  be 
an  active,  clear-headed  politician  and  a  mystic  at  the 
same  time.  Various  dates  have  been  assigned  to  the 
composition  of  the  Vita  Nuova.  The  earliest  limit  is 
fixed  by  the  death  of  Beatrice  in  1290  (though  some  of 
the  poems  are  of  even  earlier  date),  and  the  book  is 
commonly  assumed  to  have  been  finished  by  1295; 
Foscolo  says  1294.  But  Professor  Karl  Witte,  a  high 
authority,  extends  the  term  as  far  as  1300.*  The  title 
of  the  book  also,  Vita  Nuova,  has  been  diversely  inter 
preted.  Mr.  Garrow,  who  published  an  English  version 
of  it  at  Florence  in  1846,  entitles  it  the  "  Early  Life  of 
Dante."  Balbo  understands  it  in  the  same  way.f  But 
•we  are  strongly  of  the  opinion  that  "  New  Life  "  is  the 
interpretation  sustained  by  the  entire  significance  of  the 
book  itself. 

His  next  work  in  order  of  date  is  the  treatise  De  Mo- 
narchid.  It  has  been  generally  taken  for  granted  that 
Dante  was  a  Guelph  in  politics  up  to  the  time  of  his 
banishment,  and  that  out  of  resentment  he  then  became 
a  violent  Ghibelline.  Not  to  speak  of  the  consideration 
that  there  is  no  author  whose  life  and  works  present  so 
remarkable  a  unity  and  logical  sequence  as  those  of 
Dante,  Professor  Witte  has  drawn  attention  to  a  fact 
which  alone  is  enough  to  demonstrate  that  the  De  Mo- 
narchid  was  written  before  1300.  That  and  the  Vita ' 
Nuova  are  the  only  works  of  Dante  in  which  no  allusion 
whatever  is  made  to  his  exile.  That  bitter  thought  was 
continually  present  to  him.  In  the  Convito  it  betrays 

*  Dante  Aligliieri's  lyrische  Gedichte,  Leipzig,  1842,  Theil  II.  pp. 
4-9. 
t  Vita,  p.  97. 


28  DANTE. 

itself  often,  and  with  touching  unexpectedness.  Even  in 
the  treatise  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  he  takes  as  one  of  his 
examples  of  style  :  "  I  have  most  pity  for  those,  whoso 
ever  they  are,  that  languish  in  exile,  and  revisit  their 
country  only  in  dreams."  We  have  seen  that  the  one 
decisive  act  of  Dante's  priorate  was  to  expel  from  Flor 
ence  the  chiefs  of  both  parties  as  the  sowers  of  strife,  and 
he  tells  us  (Paradiso,  XVII.)  that  he  had  formed  a  party 
by  himself.  The  king  of  Saxony  has  well  denned  his 
political  theory  as  being  "  an  ideal  Ghibellinism "  * 
and  he  has  been  accused  of  want  of  patriotism  only  by 
those  short-sighted  persons  who  cannot  see  beyond  their 
own  parish.  Dante's  want  of  faith  in  freedom  was  of 
the  same  kind  with  Milton's  refusing  (as  Tacitus  had 
done  before)  to  confound  license  with  liberty.  The  ar 
gument  of  the  De  MonarchiA  is  briefly  this  :  As  the  ob 
ject  of  the  individual  man  is  the  highest  development 
of  his  faculties,  so  is  it  also  with  men  united  in  societies. 
But  the  individual  can  only  attain  the  highest  develop 
ment  when  all  his  powers  are  in  absolute  subjection  to 
the  intellect,  and  society  only  when  it  subjects  its  indi 
vidual  caprices  to  an  intelligent  head.  This  is  the  order 
of  nature,  as  in  families,  and  men  have  followed  it  in  the 
organization  of  villages,  towns,  cities.  Again,  since  God 
made  man  in  his  own  image,  men  and  societies  most 
nearly  resemble  him  in  proportion  as  they  approach 
unity.  But  as  in  all  societies  questions  must  arise,  so 
there  is  need  of  a  monarch  for  supreme  arbiter.  And 
only  a  universal  monarch  can  be  impartial  enough  for 
this,  since  kings  of  limited  territories  would  always  be 
liable  to  the  temptation  of  private  ends.  With  the  in 
ternal  policy  of  municipalities,  commonwealths,  and  king 
doms,  the  monarch  would  have  nothing  to  do,  only  inter 
fering  when  there  was  danger  of  an  infraction  of  the 
*  Comment  on  Paradiso,  VI. 


DANTE.  29 

general  peace.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  first  book,  en 
forced  sometimes  eloquently,  always  logically,  and  with 
great  fertility  of  illustration.  It  is  an  enlargement  of 
some  of  the  obiter  dicta  of  the  Convito.  The  earnestness 
with  which  peace  is  insisted  on  as  a  necessary  postulate 
of  civic  well-being  shows  what  the  experience  had  been 
out  of  which  Dante  had  constructed  his  theory.  It  is 
to  be  looked  on  as  a  purely  scholastic  demonstration  of 
a  speculative  thesis,  in  which  the  manifold  exceptions 
and  modifications  essential  in  practical  application  are 
necessarily  left  aside.  Dante  almost  forestalls  the  fa 
mous  proposition  of  Calvin,  "  that  it  is  possible  to  con 
ceive  a  people  without  a  prince,  but  not  a  prince  with 
out  a  people,"  when  he  says,  Non  enim  gens  propter 
regem,  sed  e  converso  rex  propter  gentem*  And  in  his 
letter  to  the  princes  and  peoples  of  Italy  on  the  coming 
of  Henry  VII.,  he  bids  them  "  obey  their  prince,  but  so 
as  freemen  preserving  their  own  constitutional  forms." 
He  says  also  expressly  :  Animadvertendum  sane,  quod 
cum  dicitur  humanum  genus  potest  regi  per  unum  supre- 
mum  principem,  non  sic  intelligendum  est  ut  ab  illo  uno 
prodire  possint  municipia  et  leges  munidpales.  Habent 
namque  nationes,  regna,  et  civitates  inter  se  proprietates 
quas  legibus  differentibus  regulari  oportet.  Schlosser 
the  historian  compares  Dante's  system  with  that  of  the 
United  States. t  It  in  some  respects  resembled  more 
the  constitution  of  the  Netherlands  under  the  supreme 
stadtholder,  but  parallels  between  ideal  and  actual  in 
stitutions  are  always  unsatisfactory.^: 

*  Jean  de  Meung  bad  already  said,  — • 

"  Ge  n'en  met  hors  rois  ne  prelas 

Qu'il  sunt  tui  serf  au  menu  pueple." 

—  Roman  de  la  Rose  (ed.  Meon),  V.  ii.  pp.  78,  79. 
t  Dante,  Studien,  etc.,  1855,  p.  144.  . 
t  Compare  also  Spinoza,  Tractat.  polit.,  Cap.  VI. 


30  DANTE. 

The  second  book  is  very  curious.  In  it  Dante  en 
deavors  to  demonstrate  the  divine  right  of  the  Roman 
Empire  to  universal  sovereignty.  One  of  his  arguments 
is,  that  Christ  consented  to  be  born  under  the  reign  of 
Augustus ;  another,  that  he  assented  to  the  imperial 
jurisdiction  in  allowing  himself  to  be  crucified  under  a 
decree  of  one  of  its  courts.  The  atonement  could  not 
have  been  accomplished  unless  Christ  suffered  under 
sentence  of  a  court  having  jurisdiction,  for  otherwise  his 
condemnation  would  have  been  an  injustice  and  not  a 
penalty.  Moreover,  since  all  mankind  was  typified  in 
the  person  of  Christ,  the  court  must  have  been  one 
having  jurisdiction  over  all  mankind  ;  and  since  he  was 
delivered  to  Pilate,  an  officer  of  Tiberius,  it  must  follow 
that  the  jurisdiction  of  Tiberius  was  universal.  He 
draws  an  argument  also  from  the  wager  of  battle  to 
prove  that  the  Roman  Empire  was  divinely  permitted, 
at  least,  if  not  instituted.  For  since  it  is  admitted  that 
God  gives  the  victory,  and  since  the  Romans  always  won 
it,  therefore  it  was  God's  will  that  the  Romans  should 
attain  universal  empire.  In  the  third  book  he  endeavors 
to  prove  that  the  emperor  holds  by  divine  right,  and  not 
by  permission  of  the  pope.  He  assigns  supremacy  to 
the  pope  in  spirituals,  and  to  the  emperor  in  temporals. 
This  was  a  delicate  subject,  and  though  the  king  of 
Saxony  (a  Catholic)  says  that  Dante  did  not  overstep 
the  limits  of  orthodoxy,  it  was  on  account  of  this  part 
of  the  book  that  it  was  condemned  as  heretical.* 

Next  follows  the  treatise  De  Vulgari  Eloquio.  Though 
we  have  doubts  whether  we  possess  this  book  as  Dante 
wrote  it,  inclining  rather  to  think  that  it  is  a  copy  in 

*  It  is  instructive  to  compare  Dante's  political  treatise  with  those 
of  Aristotle  and  Spinoza.  We  thus  see  more  clearly  the  limitations 
of  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  and  this  may  help  us  to  a  broader 
view  of  him  as  poet. 


DANTE.  31 

some  parts  textually  exact,  in  others  an  abstract,  there 
can  be  no  question  either  of  its  great  glossologieal  value 
or  that  it  conveys  the  opinions  of  Dante.  We  put  it 
next  in  order,  though  written  later  than  the  Convito, 
only  because,  like  the  De  Monarchid,  it  is  written  in 
Latin.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  national  instinct  of  Dante, 
and  of  his  confidence  in  his  genius,  that  he  should  have 
chosen  to  write  all  his  greatest  works  in  what  was 
deemed  by  scholars  a  patois,  but  which  he  more  than 
any  other  man  made  a  classic  language.  Had  he  in 
tended  the  De  Monarchid  for  a  political  pamphlet,  he 
would  certainly  not  have  composed  it  in  the  dialect 
of  the  few.  The  De  Vulgari  Eloquio  was  to  have  been 
in  four  books.  Whether  it  was  ever  finished  or  not 
it  is  impossible  to  say ;  but  only  two  boots  have  come 
down  to  us.  It  treats  of  poetizing  in  the  vulgar  tongue, 
and  of  the  different  dialects  of  Italy.  From  the  particu 
larity  with  which  it  treats  of  the  dialect  of  Bologna,  it 
has  been  supposed  to  have  been  written  in  that  city,  or 
at  least  to  furnish  an  argument  in  favor  of  Dante's  hav 
ing  at  some  time  studied  there.  In  Lib.  II.  Cap.  II.,  is 
a  remarkable  passage  in  which,  defining  the  various  sub 
jects  of  song  and  what  had  been  treated  in  the  vulgar 
tongue  by  different  poets,  he  says  that  his  own  theme 
had  been  righteousness. 

The  Convito  is  also  imperfect.  It  was  to  have  con 
sisted  of  fourteen  treatises,  but,  as  we  have  it,  contains 
only  four.  In  the  first  he  justifies  the  use  of  the  vul 
gar  idiom  in  preference  to  the  Latin.  In  the  other 
three  he  comments  on  three  of  his  own  Canzoni.  It 
will  be  impossible  to  give  an  adequate  analysis  of  this 
work  in  the  limits  allowed  us.*  It  is  an  epitome  of  the 
learning  of  that  age,  philosophical,  theological,  and  sci- 

*  A  very  good  one  may  be  found  in  the  six*h  volume  of  the  Molini 
edition  of  Dante,  pp.  391-433. 


32  DANTE. 

entific.  As  affording  illustration  of  the  Commedia,  and 
of  Dante's  style  of  thought,  it  is  invaluable.  It  is 
reckoned  by  his  countrymen  the  first  piece  of  Italian 
prose,  and  there  are  parts  of  it  which  still  stand  un 
matched  for  eloquence  and  pathos.  The  Italians  (even 
such  a  man  as  Cantu  among  the  rest)  find  in  it  and  a 
few  passages  of  the  Commedia  the  proof  that  Dante,  as  a 
natural  philosopher  was  wholly  in  advance  of  his  age,  — 
that  he  had,  among  other  things,  anticipated  Newton  in 
the  theory  of  gravitation.  But  this  is  as  idle  as  the 
claim  that  Shakespeare  had  discovered  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  before  Harvey,*  and  one  might  as  well 
attempt  to  dethrone  Newton  because  Chaucer  speaks 
of  the  love  which  draws  the  apple  to  the  earth.  The 
truth  is,  that  it  was  only  as  a  poet  that  Dante  was  great 
and  original  (glory  enough,  surely,  to  have  not  more 
than  two  competitors),  and  in  matters  of  science,  as  did 
all  his  contemporaries,  sought  the  guiding  hand  of  Aris 
totle  like  a  child.  Dante  is  assumed  by  many  to  have 
been  a  Platonist,  but  this  is  not  true,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word.  Like  all  men  of  great  imagination,  he 
was  an  idealist,  and  so  far  a  Platonist,  as  Shakespeare 
might  be  proved  to  have  been  by  his  sonnets.  But 
Dante's  direct  acquaintance  with  Plato  may  be  reckoned 
at  zero,  and  we  consider  it  as  having  strongly  influenced 
his  artistic  development  for  the  better,  that  transcenden- 
talist  as  he  was  by  nature,  so  much  so  as  to  be  in  dan 
ger  of  lapsing  into  an  Oriental  mysticism,  his  habits  of 
thought  should  have  been  made  precise  and  his  genius 
disciplined  by  a  mind  so  severely  logical  as  that  of  Aris 
totle.  This  does  not  conflict  with  what  we  believe  to 
be  equally  true,  that  the  Platonizing  commentaries  on 
his  poem,  like  that  of  Landino,  are  the  most  satisfac 
tory.  Beside  the.  prose  already  mentioned,  we  have 

*  See  Field's  "Theory  of  Colors." 


DANTE.  33 

a  small  collection  of  Dante's  letters,  the  recovery  of  the 
larger  number  of  which  we  owe  to  Professor  Witte. 
They  are  all  interesting,  some  of  them  especially  so,  as 
illustrating  the  prophetic  character  with  which  Dante 
invested  himself.  The  longest  is  one  addressed  to  Can 
Grande  della  Scalla,  explaining  the  intention  of  the 
Commedia  and  the  method  to  be  employed  in  its  inter 
pretation.  The  authenticity  of  this  letter  has  been 
doubted,  but  is  now  generally  admitted. 

We  shall  barely  allude  to  the  minor  poems,  full  of 
grace  and  depth  of  mystic  sentiment,  and  which  would 
have  given  Dante  a  high  place  in  the  history  of  Italian 
literature,  even  had  he  written  nothing  else.  They  are 
so  abstract,  however,  that  without  the  extrinsic  inter 
est  of  having  been  written  by  the  author  of  the  Com 
media,  they  would  probably  find  few  readers.  All  that 
is  certainly  known  in  regard  to  the  Commedia  is  that 
it  was  composed  during  the  nineteen  years  which  inter 
vened  between  Dante's  banishment  and  death.  At 
tempts  have  been  made  to  fix  precisely  the  dates  of  the 
different  parts,  but  without  success,  and  the  differences 
of  opinion  are  bewildering.  Foscolo  has  constructed  an 
ingenious  and  forcible  argument  to  show  that  no  part 
of  the  poem  was  published  before  the  author's  death. 
The  question  depends  somewhat  on  the  meaning  we  at 
tach  to  the  word  "published."  In  an  age  of  manuscript 
the  wide  dispersion  of  a  poem  so  long  even  as  a  single 
one  of  the  three  divisions  of  the  Commedia  would  be 
accomplished  very  slowly.  But  it  is  difficult  to  ac 
count  for  the  great  fame  which  Dante  enjoyed  during 
the  latter  years  of  his  life,  unless  we  suppose  that  parts, 
at  least,  of  his  greatest  work  had  been  read  or  heard  by 
a  large  number  of  persons.  This  need  not,  however, 
imply  publication ;  and  Witte,  whose  opinion  is  entitled 
to  great  consideration,  supposes  even  the  Inferno  not  to 
2*  O 


34  DANTE. 

have  been  finished  before  1314  or  1315.  In  a  matter 
where  certainty  would  be  impossible,  it  is  of  little  con 
sequence  to  reproduce  conjectural  dates.  In  the  letter 
to  Can  Grande,  before  alluded  to,  Dante  himself  has 
stated  the  theme  of  his  song.  He  says  that  "  the  literal 
subject  of  the  whole  work-  is  the  state  of  the  soul  after 
death  simply  considered.  But  if  the  work  be  taken 
allegorically,  the  subject  is  man,  as  by  merit  or  demerit, 
through  freedom  of  the  will,  he  renders  himself  liable 
to  the  reward  or  punishment  of  justice."  He  tells  us 
that  the  work  is  to  be  interpreted  in  a  literal,  allegori 
cal,  moral,  and  anagogical  sense,  a  mode  then  commonly 
employed  with  the  Scriptures,*  and  of  which  he  gives 
the  following  example  :  "  To  make  which  mode  of  treat 
ment  more  clear,  it  may  be  applied  in  the  following 
verses  :  In  -exitu  Israel  de  JEgypto,  domus  Jacob  de  po- 
pulo  barbaro,  facta  est  Judaea  sandificatio  ejus,  Israel 
potestas  ejus.-\-  For  if  we  look  only  at  the  literal  sense, 
it  signifies  the  going  out  of  the  children  of  Israel  from 
Egypt  in  the  time  of  Moses ;  if  at  the  allegorical,  it 
signifies  our  redemption  through  Christ ;  if  at  the  moral, 
it  signifies  the  conversion  of  the  soul  from  the  grief  and 
misery  of  sin  to  a  state  of  grace ;  and  if  at  the  ana 
gogical,  it  signifies  the  passage  of  the  blessed  soul  from 
the  bondage  of  this  corruption  to  the  freedom  of  eternal 
glory."  A  Latin  couplet,  cited  by  one  of  the  old  com 
mentators,  puts  the  matter  compactly  together  for  us  :  — 

"  Litera  gesta  refert ;  quid  credas  allegoria  ; 
Moralis  quid  agas ;  quid  speres  anagogia." 

Dante  tells  us  that  he  calls  his  poem  a  comedy  because 
it  has  a  fortunate  ending,  and  gives  its  title  thus : 
"  Here  begins  the  comedy  of  Dante  Alighieri,  a  Floren- 

*  As  by  Dante  himself  in  the  Convito. 
t  Psalm  cxiv.  1,  2. 


DANTE.  35 

tine  by  birth,  but  not  in  morals."  *  The  poem  consists 
of  three  parts,  Hell,  Purgatory,  and  Paradise.  Each 
part  is  divided  into  thirty-three  cantos,  in  allusion  to 
the  years  of  the  Saviour's  life  ;  for  though  the  Hell  con 
tains  thirty-four,  the  first  canto  is  merely  introductory. 
In  the  form  of  the  verse  (triple  rhyme)  we  may  find  an 
emblem  of  the  Trinity,  and  in  the  three  divisions,  of  the 
threefold  state  of  man,  sin,  grace,  and  beatitude.  Sym 
bolic  meanings  reveal  themselves,  or  make  themselves 
suspected,  everywhere,  as  in  the  architecture  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  An  analysis  of  the  poem  would  be  out 
of  place  here,  but  we  must  say  a  few  words  of  Dante's 
position  as  respects  modern  literature.  If  we  except 
Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  he  is  the  first  Christian  poet, 
the  first  (indeed,  we  might  say  the  only)  one  whose 
whole  system  of  thought  is  colored  in  every  finest  fibre 
by  a  purely  Christian  theology.  Lapse  through  sin,  me 
diation,  and  redemption,  these  are  the  subjects  of  the 
three  parts  of  the  poem  :  or,  otherwise  stated,  intellec 
tual  conviction  of  the  result  of  sin,  typified  in  Virgil 
(symbol  also  of  that  imperialism  whose  origin  he  sang) ; 
moral  conversion  after  repentance,  by  divine  grace,  typi 
fied  in  Beatrice  ;  reconciliation  with  God,  and  actual 
blinding  vision  of  him.  —  "The  pure  in  heart  shall  see 
God."  Here  are  general  truths  which  any  Christian 
may  accept  and  find  comfort  in.  But  the  poem  comes 
nearer  to  us  than  this.  It  is  the  real  history  of  a 
bro.ther  man,  of  a  tempted,  purified,  and  at  last  trium 
phant  human  soul ;  it  teaches  the  benign  ministry  of 
sorrow,  and  that  the  ladder  of  that  faith  by  which 
man  climbs  to  the  actual  fruition  of  things  not  seen 
ex  quovis  ligno  non  fit,  but  only  of  the  cross  manfully 
borne.  The  poem  is  also,  in  a  very  intimate  sense, 

*  He  commonly  prefaced  his  letters  with  some  such  phrase  as  exul 
immeritus. 


36  DANTE. 

an  apotheosis  of  woman.  Indeed,  as  Marvell's  drop  of 
dew  mirrored  the  "whole  firmament,  so  we  find  in  the 
Commedia  the  image  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  sen 
timental  gyniolatry  of  chivalry,  which  was  at  best  but 
skin-deep,  is  lifted  in  Beatrice  to  an  ideal  and  uni 
versal  plane.  It  is  the  same  with  Catholicism,  with 
imperialism,  with  the  scholastic  philosophy ;  and  noth 
ing  is  more  wonderful  than  the  power  of  absorption  and 
assimilation  in  this  man,  who  could  take  up  into  himself 
the  world  that  then  was,  and  reproduce  it  with  such 
cosmopolitan  truth  to  human  nature  and  to  his  own 
individuality,  as  to  reduce  all  contemporary  history  to 
a  mere  comment  on  his  vision.  We  protest,  therefore, 
against  the  parochial  criticism  which  would  degrade 
Dante  to  a  mere  partisan,  which  sees  in  him  a  Luther 
before  his  time,  and  would  clap  the  bonnet  rouge  upon 
his  heavenly  muse. 

Like  all  great  artistic  minds,  Dante  was  essentially 
conservative,  and,  arriving  precisely  in  that  period  of 
transition  when  Church  and  Empire  were  entering  upon 
the  modern  epoch  of  thought,  he  strove  to  preserve 
both  by  presenting  the  theory  of  both  in  a  pristine  and 
ideal  perfection.  The  whole  nature  of  Dante  was  one 
of  intense  belief.  There  is  proof  upon  proof  that  he 
believed  himself  invested  with  a  divine  mission.  Like 
the  Hebrew  prophets,  with  whose  writings  his  whole 
soul  was  imbued,  it  was  back  to  the  old  worship  and 
the  God  of  the  fathers  that  he  called  his  people ;  .and 
not  Isaiah  himself  was  more  destitute  of  that  humor, 
that  sense  of  ludicrous  contrast,  which  is  an  essential  in 
the  composition  of  a  sceptic.  In  Dante's  time,  learn 
ing  had  something  of  a  sacred  character ;  the  line  was 
hardly  yet  drawn  between  the  clerk  and  the  possessor 
of  supernatural  powers ;  it  was  with  the  next  genera 
tion,  with  the  elegant  Petrarch,  even  more  truly  than 


DANTE.  37 

with  the  kindly  Boccaccio,  that  the  purely  literary  life, 
and  that  dilettanteism,  which  is  the  twin  sister  of  scep 
ticism,  began.  As  a  merely  literary  figure,  the  position 
of  Dante  is  remarkable.  Not  only  as  respects  thought, 
but  as  respects  aesthetics  also,  his  great  poem  stands  as 
a  monument  on  the  boundary  line  between  the  ancient 
and  modern.  He  not  only  marks,  but  is  in  himself, 
the  transition.  Arma  virumque  cano,  that  is  the  motto 
of  classic  song;  the  things  of  this  world  and  great 
men.  Dante  says,  subjectum  est  homo,  not  vir ;  my 
theme  is  man,  not  a  man.  The  scene  of  the  old  epic 
and  drama  was  in  this  world,  and  its  catastrophe  here ; 
Dante  lays  his  scene  in  the  human  soul,  and  his  fifth 
act  in  the  other  world.  He  makes  himself  the  protago 
nist  of  his  own  drama.  In  the  Commedia  for  the  first 
time  Christianity  wholly  revolutionizes  Art,  and  becomes 
its  seminal  principle.  But  aesthetically  also,  as  well  as 
morally,  Dante  stands  between  the  old  and  the  new, 
and  reconciles  them.  The  theme  of  his  poem  is  purely 
subjective,  modern,  what  is  called  romantic ;  but  its 
treatment  is  objective  (almost  to  realism,  here  and 
there),  and  it  is  limited  by  a  form  of  classic  severity. 
In  the  same  way  he  sums  up  in  himself  the  two  schools 
of  modern  poetry  which  had  preceded  him,  and,  while 
essentially  lyrical  in  his  subject,  is  epic  in  the  hand 
ling  of  it.  So  also  he  combines  the  deeper  and  more 
abstract  religious  sentiment  of  the  Teutonic  races  with 
the  scientific  precision  and  absolute  systematism  of  the 
Romanic.  In  one  respect  Dante  stands  alone.  While 
we  can  in  some  sort  account  for  such  representative 
men  as  Voltaire  and  Goethe  (nay,  even  Shakespeare)  by 
the  intellectual  and  moral  fermentation  of  the  age  in 
which  they  lived,  Dante  seems  morally  isolated  and  to 
have  drawn  his  inspiration  almost  wholly  from  his  own 
internal  reserves.  Of  his  mastery  in  style  we  need  say 


38  DANTE. 

little  here.  Of  his  mere  language,  nothing  could  be 
better  than  the  expression  of  Rivarol :  "  His  verse  holds 
itself  erect  by  the  mere  force  of  the  substantive  and 
verb,  without  the  help  of  a  single  epithet."  We  will 
only  add  a  word  on  what  seems  to  us  an  extraordinary 
misapprehension  of  Coleridge,  who  disparages  Dante  by 
comparing  his  Lucifer  with  Milton's  Satan.  He  seems 
to  have  forgotten  that  the  precise  measurements  of 
Dante  were  not  prosaic,  but  absolutely  demanded  by 
the  nature  of  his  poem.  He  is  describing  an  actual 
journey,  and  his  exactness  makes  a  part  of  the  verisim 
ilitude.  We  read  the  "Paradise  Lost"  as  a  poem,  the 
Commedia  as  a  record  of  fact ;  and  no  one  can  read 
Dante  without  believing  his  story,  for  it  is  plain  that 
he  believed  it  himself.  It  is  false  aesthetics  to  confound 
the  grandiose  with  the  imaginative.  Milton's  angels  are 
not  to  be  compared  with  Dante's,  at  once  real  and  super 
natural  ;  and  the  Deity  of  Milton  is  a  Calvinistic  Zeus, 
while  nothing  in  all  poetry  approaches  the  imaginative 
grandeur  of  Dante's  vision  of  God  at  the  conclusion  of 
the  Paradiso.  In  all  literary  history  there  is  no  such 
figure  as  Dante,  no  such  homogeneousness  of  life  and 
works,  such  loyalty  to  ideas,  such  sublime  irrecognition 
of  the  unessential ;  and  there  is  no  moral  more  touching 
than  that  the  contemporary  recognition  of  such  a  nature, 
so  endowed  and  so  faithful  to  its  endowment,  should  be 
summed  up  in  the  sentence  of  Florence  :  Igne  combura- 
tur  sic  quod  moriatur.* 

The  range  of  Dante's  influence  is  not  less  remarkable 
than  its  intensity.  Minds,  the  antipodes  of  each  other 

*  In  order  to  fix  more  precisely  in  the  mind  the  place  of  Dante  in 
relation  to  the  history  of  thought,  literature,  and  events,  we  subjoin 
a  few  dates  :  Dante  born,  1265  ;  end  of  Crusades,  death  of  St.  Louis, 
1270  ;  Aquinas  died,  1274  ;  Bonaventura  died,  1274 ;  Giotto  born, 
1276  ;  Albertus  Magnus  died,  1280  ;  Sicilian  vespers,  1282  ;  death  of 
Ugolino  and  Francesca  da  Rimini,  1282 ;  death  of  Beatrice,  1290 ; 


DANTE.  39 

in  temper  and  endowment,  alike  feel  the  force  of  his  at 
traction,  the  pervasive  comfort  of  his  light  and  warmth. 
Boccaccio  and  Lamennais  are  touched  with  the  same 
reverential  enthusiasm.  The  imaginative  Ruskin  is 
rapt  by  him,  as  we  have  seen,  perhaps  beyond  the 
limit  where  critical  appreciation  merges  in  enthusiasm ; 
and  the  matter-of-fact  Schlosser  tells  us  that  "  he,  who 
was  wont  to  contemplate  earthly  life  wholly  in  an 
earthly  light,  has  made  use  of  Dante,  Landino,  and 
Vellutello  in  his  solitude  to  bring  a  heavenly  light  into 
his  inward  life."  Almost  all  other  poets  have  their 
seasons,  but  Dante  penetrates  to  the  moral  core  of 
those  who  once  fairly  come  within  his  sphere,  and  pos 
sesses  them  wholly.  His  readers  turn  students,  his 
students  zealots,  and  what  was  a  taste  becomes  a 
religion.  The  homeless  exile  finds  a  home  in  thou 
sands  of  grateful  hearts.  .  E  venne  da  esilio  in  questa 
pace  ! 

Every  kind  of  objection,  aesthetic  and  other,  may  be, 
and  has  been,  made  to  the  Divina  Commedia,  especially 
by  critics  who  have  but  a  superficial  acquaintance  with 
it,  or  rather  with  the  Inferno,  which  is  as  far  as  most 
English  critics  go.  Coleridge  himself,  who  had  a  way 
of  divining  what  was  in  books,  may  be  justly  suspected 
of  not  going  further,  though  with  Carey  to  help  him. 
Mr.  Carlyle,  who  has  said  admirable  things  of  Dante  the 
man,  was  very  imperfectly  read  in  Dante  the  author,  or 
he  would  never  have  put  'Sordello  in  hell  and  the  meet 
ing  with  Beatrice  in  paradise.  In  France  it  was  not  much 
better  (though  Rivarol  has  said  the  best  thing  hitherto 

Roger  Bacon  died,  1292  ;  death  of  Cimabue,  1302 ;  Dante's  banish 
ment,  1302  ;  Petrarch  born,  1304  ;  Fra  Dolcino  burned,  1307  ;  Pope 
Clement  V.  at  Avignon,  1309 ;  Templars  suppressed,  1312  ;  Boc 
caccio  bom,  1313  ;  Dante  died,  1321  ;  Wycliflfe  born,  1324 ;  Chau 
cer  born,  1328. 


40  DANTE. 

of  Dante's  parsimony  of  epithet  *)  before  Ozanam,  who, 
if  with  decided  ultramontane  leanings,  has  written  ex 
cellently  well  of  our  poet,  and  after  careful  study.  Vol 
taire,  though  not  without  relentings  toward  a  poet  who 
had  put  popes  heels  upward  in  hell,  regards  him  on  the 
whole  as  a  stupid  monster  and  barbarian.  It  was  no 
better  in  Italy,  if  we  may  trust  Foscolo,  who  affirms 
that  "neither  Pelli  nor  others  deservedly  more  cele 
brated  than  he  ever  read  attentively  the  poem  of  Dante, 
perhaps  never  ran  through  it  from  the  first  verse  to  the 
last."t  Accordingly  we  have  heard  that  the  Commedia 
was  a  sermon,  a  political  pamphlet,  the  revengeful  satire 
of  a  disappointed  Ghibelline,  nay,  worse,  of  a  turncoat 
Guelph.  It  is  narrow,  it  is  bigoted,  it  is  savage,  it  is 
theological,  it  is  mediseval,  it  is  heretical,  it  is  scholastic, 
it  is  obscure,  it  is  pedantic,  its  Italian  is  not  that  of  la 
Crusca,its  ideas  are  not  those  of  an  enlightened  eighteenth 
century,  it  is  everything,  in  short,  that  a  poem  should  not 
be ;  and  yet,  singularly  enough,  the  circle  of  its  charm 
has  widened  in  proportion  as  men  have  receded  from 
the  theories  of  Church  and  State  which  are  supposed  to 
be  its  foundation,  and  as  the  modes  of  thought  of  its 
author  have  become  more  alien  to  those  of  his  readers. 
In  spite  of  all  objections,  some  of  which  are  well  founded, 
the  Commedia  remains  one  of  the  three  or  four  universal 
books  that  have  ever  been  written. 

We  may  admit,  with  proper  limitations,  the  modern 

*  Rivavol  characterized  only  a  single  quality  of  Dante's  style,  who 
knew  how  to  spend  as  well  as  spare.  Even  the  Inferno,  on  which  he 
based  his  remark,  might  have  put  him  on  his  guard.  Dante  under 
stood  very  well  the  use  of  ornament  in  its  fitting  place.  Est  enim 
exornatio  alicujus  convenientis  additio,  he  tells  us  in  his  De  Vulgari 
Eloquio  (Lib.  II.  C.  II.).  His  simile  of  the  doves  (Inferno,  V.  82  et 
seq. ),  perhaps  the  most  exquisite  in  all  poetry,  quite  oversteps  Rivarol's 
narrow  limit  of  "  substantive  and  verb." 

f  Discorso  sul  testo,  ec.,  §  XVIII. 


DANTE.  41 

distinction  between  the  Artist  and  the  Moralist.  With 
the  one  Form  is  all  in  all,  with  the  other  Tendency. 
The  aim  of  the  one  is  to  delight,  of  the  other  to  con 
vince.  The  one  is  master  of  his  purpose,  the  other 
mastered  by  it.  The  whole  range  of  perception  and 
thought  is  valuable  to  the  one  as  it  will  minister  to 
imagination,  to  the  other  only  as  it  is  available  for  argu 
ment.  With  the  moralist  use  is  beauty,  good  only  as 
it  serves  an  ulterior  purpose  ;  with  the  artist  beauty  is 
use,  good  in  and  for  itself.  In  the  fine  arts  the  vehicle 
makes  part  of  the  thought,  coalesces  with  it.  The  liv 
ing  conception  shapes  itself  a  body  in  marble,  color,  or 
modulated  sound,  and  henceforth  the  two  are  inseparable. 
The  results  of  the  moralist  pass  into  the  intellectual 
atmosphere  of  mankind,  it  matters  little  by  what  mode 
of  conveyance.  But  where,  as  in  Dante,  the  religious 
sentiment  and  the  imagination  are  both  organic,  some 
thing  interfused  with  the  whole  being  of  the  man,  so 
that  they  work  in  kindly  sympathy,  the  moral  will  in 
sensibly  suffuse  itself  with  beauty  as  a  cloud  with  light. 
Then  that  fine  sense  of  remote  analogies,  awake  to  the 
assonance  between  facts  seemingly  remote  and  unrelated, 
between  the  outward  and  inward  worlds,  though  con 
vinced  that  the  things  of  this  life  are  shadows,  will  be 
persuaded  also  that  they  are  not  fantastic  merely,  but 
imply  a  substance  somewhere,  and  will  love  to  set  forth 
the  beauty  of  the  visible  image  because  it  suggests  the 
ineffably  higher  charm  of  the  unseen  original.  Dante's 
ideal  of  life,  the  enlightening  and  strengthening  of 
that  native  instinct  of  the  Soul  which  leads  it  to  strive 
backward  toward  its  divine  source,  may  sublimate  the 
senses  till  each  becomes  a  window  for  the  light  of  truth 
and  the  splendor  of  God  to  shine  through.  In  him  as 
in  Calderoii  the  perpetual  presence  of  imagination  not 
only  glorifies  the  philosophy  of  life  and  the  science  of 


42  DANTE. 

theology,  but  idealizes  both  in  symbols  of  material 
beauty.  Though  Dante's  conception  of  the  highest  end 
of  man  was  that  he  should  climb  through  every  phase 
of  human  experience  to  that  transcendental  and  super- 
sensual  region  where  the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beauti 
ful  blend  in  the  white  light  of  God,  yet  the  prism  of  his 
imagination  forever  resolved  the  ray  into  color  again, 
and  he  loved  to  show  it  also  where,  entangled  and  ob 
structed  in  matter,  it  became  beautiful  once  more  to  the 
eye  of  sense.  Speculation,  he  tells  us,  is  the  use,  with 
out  any  mixture,  of  our  noblest  part  (the  reason).  And 
this  part  cannot  in  this  life  have  its  perfect  use,  which 
is  to  behold  God  (who  is  the  highest  object  of  the  intel 
lect),  except  inasmuch  as  the  intellect  considers  and 
beholds  him  in  his  effects.*  Underlying  Dante  the 
metaphysician,  statesman,  and  theologian,  was  always 
Dante  the  poet,t  irradiating  and  vivifying,  gleaming 
through  in  a  picturesque  phrase,  or  touching  things 
unexpectedly  with  that  ideal  light  which  softens  and 
subdues  like  distance  in  the  landscape.  The  stern  out 
line  of  his  system  wavers  and  melts  away  before  the 
eye  of  the  reader  in  a  mirage  of  imagination  that  lifts 
from  beyond  the  sphere  of  vision  and  hangs  in  serener 
air  images  of  infinite  suggestion  projected  from  worlds 
not  realized,  but  substantial  to  faith, 'hope,  and  aspira 
tion.  Beyond  the  horizon  of  speculation  floats,  in  the 

*  Convito,  B.  IV.  C.  XXII. 

t  It  is  remarkable  that  when  Dante,  in  1297,  as  a  preliminary  con 
dition  to  active  politics,  enrolled  himself  in  the  guild  of  physicians 
and  apothecaries,  he  is  qualified  only  -with  the  title  poeta.  The  arms 
of  the  Alighieri  (curiously  suitable  to  him  who  sovra  yli  altri  come 
aquila  vola)  were  a  wing  of  gold  in  a  field  of  azure.  His  vivid  sense  of 
beauty  even  hovers  sometimes  like  a  corposant  over  the  somewhat 
stiff  lines  of  his  Latin  prose.  For  example,  in  his  letter  to  the  kings 
and  princes  of  Italy  on  the  coming  of  Henry  VII.  :  "A  new  day 
brightens,  revealing  the  dawn  which  already  scatters  the  shades  of  long 
calamity  ;  already  the  breezes  of  morning  gather ;  the  lips  of  heaven 
are  reddening  !  " 


DANTE.  43 

passionless  splendor  of  the  empyrean,  the  city  of  our 
God,  the  Rome  whereof  Christ  is  a  Roman,*  the  citadel 
of  refuge,  even  in  this  life,  for  souls  purified  by  sorrow 
and  self-denial,  transhumanizedt  to  the  divine  abstrac 
tion  of  pure  contemplation.  "And  it  is  called  Empyr 
ean,"  he  says  in  his  letter  to  Can  Grande,  "  which  is 
the  same  as  a  heaven  blazing  with  fire  or  ardor,  not 
because  there  is  in  it  a  material  fire  or  burning,  but  a 
spiritual  one,  which  is  blessed  love  or  charity."  But 
this  splendor  he  bodies  forth,  if  sometimes  quaintly,  yet 
always  vividly  and  most  often  in  types  of  winning  grace. 
Dante  was  a  mystic  with  a  very  practical  turn  of 
mind.  A  Platonist  by  nature,  an  Aristotelian  by  train 
ing,  his  feet  keep  closely  to  the  narrow  path  of  dialectics, 
because  he  believed  it  the  safest,  while  his  eyes  are  fixed 
on  the  stars  and  his  brain  is  busy  with  things  not  de 
monstrable,  save  by  that  grace  of  God  which  passeth 
all  understanding,  nor  capable  of  being  told  unless  by 
far-oft'  hints  and  adumbrations.  Though  he  himself  has 
directly  explained  the  scope,  the  method,  and  the  larger 
meaning  of  his  greatest  work,J  though  he  has  indirectly 
pointed  out  the  way  to  its  interpretation  in  the  Convito, 
and  though  everything  he  wrote  is  but  an  explanatory 
comment  on  his  own  character  and  opinions,  unmistaka 
bly  clear  and  precise,  yet  both  man  and  poem  continue 
not  only  to  be  misunderstood  popularly,  but  also  by 
such  as  should  know  better.§  That  those  who  confined 
their  studies  to  the  Commedia  should  have  interpreted 
it  variously  is  not  wonderful,  for  out  of  the  first  or  lit 
eral  meaning  others  open,  one  out  of  another,  each  of 
wider  circuit  and  purer  abstraction,  like  Dante's  own 

*  Purgatorio,  XXXII.  100. 
t  Paradise,  I.  70. 

J  In  a  letter  to  Can  Grande  (XI.  of  the  Epistolae). 
§  Witte,  Wegele,  and  Ruth  in  German,  and  Ozanam  in  French,  have 
rendered  ignorance  of  Dante  inexcusable  among  men  of  culture. 


44  DANTE. 

Leavens,  giving  and  receiving  light.*  Indeed,  Dante 
himself  is  partly  to  blame  for  this.  "  The  form  or  mode 
of  treatment,"  he  says,  "  is  poetic,  fictive,  descriptive, 
digressive,  transumptive,  and  withal  definitive,  divisive, 
probative,  improbative,  and  positive  of  examples."  Here 
are  conundrums  enough,  to  be  sure  !  To  Italians  at 
home,  for  whom  the  great  arenas  of  political  and  religious 
speculation  were  closed,  the  temptation  to  find  a  subtler 
meaning  than  the  real  one  was  irresistible.  Italians  in 
exile,  on  the  other  hand,  made  Dante  the  stalking-horse 
from  behind  which  they  could  take  a  long  shot  at  Church 
and  State,  or  at  obscurer  foes.t  Infinitely  touching  and 
sacred  to  us  is  the  instinct  of  intense  sympathy  which 
drawst  hese  latter  toward  their  great  forerunner,  exul 
immeritus  like  themselves.  J  But  they  have  too  often 
wrung  a  meaning  from  Dante  which  is  injurious  to  the 
man  and  out  of  keeping  with  the  ideas  of  his  age.  The 
aim  in  expounding  a  great  poem  should  be,  not  to  dis 
cover  an  endless  variety  of  meanings  often  contradictory, 

*  Inferno,  VII.  75.  "  Nay,  his  style,"  says  Miss  Rossetti,  "  is 
more  than  concise  :  it  is  elliptical,  it  is  recondite.  A  first  thought 
often  lies  coiled  up  and  hidden  under  a  second  ;  the  words  which  state 
the  conclusion  involve  the  premises  and  develop  the  subject."  (p.  3.) 

t  A  complete  vocabulary  of  Italian  billingsgate  might  be  selected 
from  Biagioli.  Or  see  the  concluding  pages  of  Nannucci's  excellent 
tract  "Intorno  alle  voci  usate  da  Dante,"  Corfu,  1840.  Even  Foscolo 
could  not  always  refrain.  Dante  should  have  taught  them  to  shun 
such  vulgarities..  See  Inferno,  XXX.  131-148. 

J  "  My  Italy,  my  sweetest  Italy,  for  having  loved  thee  too  much  I 

have  lost  thee,  and,  perhaps, ah,  may  God  avert  the  omen  ! 

But  more  proud  than  sorrowful,  for  an  evil  endured  for  thee  alone,  I 

continue  to  consecrate  my  vigils  to  thee  alone An  exile  full  of 

anguish,  perchance,  availed  to  sublime  the  more  in  thy  Alighieri  that 
lofty  soul  which  was  a  beautiful  gift  of  thy  smiling  sky  ;  and  an  exile 
equally  wearisome  and  undeserved  now  avails,  perhaps,  to  sharpen  my 
small  genius  so  that  it  may  penetrate  into  what  he  left  written  for 
thy  instruction  and  for  his  glory."  (Rossetti,  Disamina,  ec.,  p.  405.) 
Rossetti  is  himself  a  proof  that  a  noble  mind  need  not  be  narrowed  by 
misfortune.  His  "  Comment "  (unhappily  incomplete)  is  one  of  the 
most  valuable  and  suggestive. 


DAXTE.  45 

but  whatever  it  has  of  great  and  perennial  significance ; 
for  such  it  must  have,  or  it  would  long  ago  have  ceased 
to  be  living  and  operative,  would  long  ago  have  taken 
refuge  in  the  Chartreuse  of  great  libraries,  dumb  thence 
forth  to  all  mankind.  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  this 
minute  exegesis  is  useless  or  unpraiseworthy,  but  only 
that  it  should  be  subsidiary  to  the  larger  way.  It  serves 
to  bring  out  more  clearly  what  is  very  wonderful  in 
Dante,  namely,  the  omnipresence  of  his  memory  through 
out  the  work,  so  that  its  intimate  coherence  does  not 
exist  in  spite  of  the  reconditeness  and  complexity  of 
allusion,  but  is  woven  out  of  them.  The  poem  has 
many  senses,  he  tells  us,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  of 
it ;  but  it  has  also,  and  this  alone  will  account  for  its 
fascination,  a  living  soul  behind  them  all  and  informing 
all,  an  intense  singleness  of  purpose,  a  core  of  doctrine 
simple,  human,  and  wholesome,  though  it  be  also,  to  use 
his  own  phrase,  the  bread  of  angels. 

Nor  is  this  unity  characteristic  only  of  the  Divina 
Commedia.  All  the  works  of  Dante,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  De  vulgari  Eloquio  (which  is  unfin 
ished),  are  component  parts  of  a  Whole  Duty  of  Man 
mutually  completing  and  interpreting  one  another.  They 
are  also,  as  truly  as  Wordsworth's  "  Prelude,"  a  history 
of  the  growth  of  a  poet's  mind.  Like  the  English  poet 
he  valued  himself  at  a  high  rate,  the  higher  no  doubt 
after  Fortune  had  made  him  outwardly  cheap.  Sempre 
U  magnanimo  si  magnified  in  suo  cuore ;  e  cosl  lo  pusil- 
lanimo  per  contrario  sempre  si  tiene  meno  che  non  e.* 
As  in  the  prose  of  Milton,  whose  striking  likeness  to 
Dante  in  certain  prominent  features  of  character  has 
been  remarked  by  Foscolo,  there  are  in  Dante's  minor 

*  The  great-minded  man  ever  magnifies  himself  in  his  heart,  and 
in  like  manner  the  pusillanimous  holds  himself  less  than  he  is.  (Con- 
vito,  Tr.  I.  c.  11. ) 


46  DANTE. 

works  continual  allusions  to  himself  of  great  value  as 
material  for  his  biographer.  Those  who  read  atten 
tively  will  discover  that  the  tenderness  he  shows  toward 
Francesca  and  her  lover  did  not  spring  from  any  friend 
ship  for  her  family,  but  was  a  constant  quality  of  his 
nature,  and  that  what  is  called  his  revengeful  ferocity 
is  truly  the  implacable  resentment  of  a  lofty  mind  and 
a  lover  of  good  against  evil,  whether  showing  itself  in 
private  or  public  life;  perhaps  hating  the  former  mani 
festation  of  it  the  most  because  he  believed  it  to  be 
the  root  of  the  latter,  —  a  faith  which  those  who  have 
watched  the  course  of  politics  in  a  democracy,  as  he 
had,  will  be  inclined  to  share.  His  gentleness  is  all 
the  more  striking  by  contrast,  like  that  silken  compen 
sation  which  blooms  out  of  the  thorny  stem  of  the 
cactus.  His  moroseness,*  his  party  spirit,  and  his 
personal  viudictiveness  are  all  predicated  upon  the 
Inferno,  and  upon  a  misapprehension  or  careless  read 
ing  even  of  that.  Dante's  zeal  was  not  of  that  senti 
mental  kind,  quickly  kindled  and  as  soon  quenched, 
that  hovers  on  the  surface  of  shallow  minds, 

"  Even  as  the  flame  of  unctuous  things  is  wont 
To  move  upon  the  outer  surface  only  "  ;  •}• 

it  was  the  steady  heat  of  an  inward  fire  kindling  the 
whole  character  of  the  man  through  and  through,  like 
the  minarets  of  his  own  city  of  Dis.J  He  was,  as 
seems  distinctive  in  some  degree  of  the  Latinized  races, 
an  unflinching  ct,  priori  logician,  not  unwilling  to  "  syllo- 

*  Dante's  notion  of  virtue  was  not  that  of  an  ascetic,  nor  has  any 
one  ever  painted  her  in  colors  more  soft  and  splendid  than  he  in  the 
Convito.  She  is  "sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Jimo's  eyes,"  and  he 
dwells  on  the  delights  of  her  love  with  a  rapture  which  kindles  and 
purifies.  So  far  from  making  her  an  inquisitor,  he  says  expressly  that 
she  "should  be  gladsome  and  not  sullen  in  all  her  works."  (Convito, 
Tr.  I.  c.  8.)  "Not  harsh  and  crabbed  as  dull  fools  suppose"  ! 

t  Inferno,  XIX.  28,  29.  J  Inferno,  VIII.  70-75. 


DANTE.  47 

gize  invidious  verities,"  *  wherever  they  might  lead  him, 
like  Sigier,  whom  he  has  put  in  paradise,  though  more 
than  suspected  of  heterodoxy.  But  at  the  same  time, 
as  we  shall  see,  he  had  something  of  the  practical  good 
sense  of  that  Teutonic  stock  whence  he  drew  a  part 
of  his  blood,  which  prefers  a  malleable  syllogism  that 
can  yield  without  breaking  to  the  inevitable,  but  incal 
culable  pressure  of  human  nature  and  the  stiffer  logic 
of  events.  His  theory  of  Church  and  State  was  not 
merely  a  fantastic  one,  but  intended  for  the  use  and 
benefit  of  men  as  they  were;  and  he  allowed  accord 
ingly  for  aberrations,  to  which  even  the  law  of  gravi 
tation  is  forced  to  give  place ;  how  much  more,  then, 
any  scheme  whose  very  starting-point  is  the  freedom 
of  the  will ! 

We  are  thankful  for  a  commentator  at  last  who 
passes  dry-shod  over  the  turbide  ottde  of  inappreciative 
criticism,  and,  quietly,  waving  aside  the  thick  atmos 
phere  which  has  gathered  about  the  character  of  Dante 
both  as  man  and  poet,  opens  for  us  his  City  of  Doom 
with  the  divining-rod  of  reverential  study.  Miss  Ros- 
setti  comes  commended  to  our  interest,  not  only  as  one 
of  a  family  which  seems  to  hold  genius  by  the  tenure 
of  gavelkind,  but  as  having  a  special  claim  by  inherit 
ance  to  a  love  and  understanding  of  Dante.  She  writes 
English  with  a  purity  that  has  in  it  something  of  femi 
nine  softness  with  no  lack  of  vigor  or  precision.  Her 
lithe  mind  winds  itself  with  surprising  grace  through 
the  metaphysical  and  other  intricacies  of  her  subject. 
She  brings  to  her  work  the  refined  enthusiasm  of  a 
cultivated  woman  and  the  penetration  of  sympathy. 
She  has  chosen  the  better  way  (in  which  Germany  took 
the  lead)  of  intei'preting  Dante  out  of  himself,  the 
pure  spring  from  which,  and  from  which  alone,  he  drew 
*  Paradise,  X.  138. 


48  DA.NTE. 

his  inspiration,  and  not  from  muddy  Fra  Alberico  or 
Abbate  Giovacchino,  from  stupid  visions  of  Saint  Paul 
or  voyages  of  Saint  Brandan.  She  has  written  by  far 
the  best  comment  that  has  appeared  in  English,  and 
we  should  say  the  best  that  has  been  done  in  England, 
were  it  not  for  her  father's  Comento  analitico,  for  ex 
cepting  which  her  filial  piety  will  thank  us.  Students 
of  Dante  in  the  original  will  be  grateful  to  her  for  many 
suggestive  hints,  and  those  who  read  him  in  English 
will  find  in  her  volume  a  travelling  map  in  which  the 
principal  points  and  their  connections  are  clearly  set 
down.  In  what  we  shall  say  of  Dante  we  shall  en 
deavor  only  to  supplement  her  interpretation  with  such 
side-lights  as  may  have  been  furnished  us  by  twenty 
years  of  assiduous  study.  Dante's  thought  is  multi 
form,  and,  like  certain  street  signs,  once  common,  pre 
sents  a  different  image  according  to  the  point  of  view. 
Let  us  consider  briefly  what  was  the  plan  of  the  Divina 
Commedia  and  Dante's  aim  in  writing  it,  which,  if  not 
to  justify,  was  at  least  to  illustrate,  for  warning  and 
example,  the  ways  of  God  to  man.  The  higher  inten 
tion  of  the  poem  was  to  set  forth  the  results  of  sin, 
or  unwisdom,  and  of  virtue,  or  wisdom,  in  this  life,  and 
consequently  in  the  life  to  come,  which  is  but  the 
continuation  and  fulfilment  of  this.  The  scene  accord 
ingly  is  the  spiritual  world,  of  which  we  are  as  truly 
denizens  now  as  hereafter.  The  poem  is  a  diary  of  the 
human  soul  in  its  journey  upwards  from  error  through 
repentance  to  atonement  with  God.  To  make  it  appre 
hensible  by  those  whom  it  was  meant  to  teach,  nay, 
from  its  very  natui'e  as  a  poem,  and  not  a  treatise  of 
abstract  morality,  it  must  set  forth  everything  by  means 
of  sensible  types  and  images. 

"  To  speak  thus  is  adapted  to  your  mind, 
Since  only  from  the  sensible  it  learns 


DANTE.  49 

What  makes  it  worthy  of  intellect  thereafter. 
On  this  account  the  Scripture  condescends 
Unto  your  faculties,  and  feet  and  hands 
To  God  attributes,  and  means  something  else."  * 

Whoever  has  studied  mediaeval  art  in  any  of  its 
branches  need  not  be  told  that  Dante's  age  was  one 
that  demanded  very  palpable  and  even  revolting  types. 
As  in  the  old  legend,  a  drop  of  scalding  sweat  from  the 
damned  soul  must  shrivel  the  very  skin  of  those  for 
whom  he  wrote,  to  make  them  wince  if  not  to  turn 
them  away  from  evil-doing.  To  consider  his  hell  a 
place  of  physical  torture  is  to  -take  Circe's  herd  for 
real  swine.  Its  mouth  yawns  not  only  under  Florence, 
but  before  the  feet  of  every  man  everywhere  who  goeth 
about  to  do  evil.  His  hell  is  a  condition  of  the  soul, 
and  he  could  not  find  images  loathsome  enough  to 
express  the  moral  deformity  which  is  wrought  by  sin 
on  its  victims,  or  his  own  abhorrence  of  it.  Its  inmates 
meet  you  in  the  street  every  day. 

"  Hell  hath  no  limits,  •nor  is  circumscribed 
In  one  self  place  ;  for  where  we  are  is  hell, 
And  where  hell  is  there  we  must  ever  be."  •)• 

It  is  our  own  sensual  eye  that  gives  evil  the  appear 
ance  of  good,  and  out  of  a  crooked  hag  makes  a  be 
witching  siren.  The  reason  enlightened  by  the  'grace 
of  God  sees  it  as  it  truly  is,  full  of  stench  and  corrup 
tion.^;  It  is  this  office  of  reason  which  Dante  under 
takes  to  perform,  by  divine  commission,  in  the  Inferno. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  looked  upon  himself  as 
invested  with  the  prophetic  function,  and  the  Hebrew 
forerunners,  in  whose  society  his  soul  sought  consola- 

*  Paradiso,  IV.  40-45  (Longfellow's  version). 

t  Marlowe's  "Faustus."  "Which  way  I  fly  is  hell;  myself  am 
hell."  (Paradise  Lost,  IV.  75.)  In  the  same  way,  ogni,  dove  in  cielo 
e  Paradiso.  (Paradiso,  III.  88,  89.) 

J  Purgatorio,  XIX.  7-33., 
3 


50  DANTE. 

tion  and  sustainment,  certainly  set  him  no  example  of 
observing  the  conventions  of  good  society  in  dealing 
with  the  enemies  of  God.  Indeed,  his  notions  of  good 
society  were  not  altogether  those  of  this  world  in  any 
generation.  He  would  have  defined  it  as  meaning 
"  the  peers "  of  Philosophy,  "  souls  free  from  wretched 
and  vile  delights  and  from  vulgar  habits,  endowed  with 
genius  and  memory."  *  Daute  himself  had  pi'ecisely 
this  endowment,  and  in  a  very  surprising  degree.  His 
genius  enabled  him  to  see  and  to  show  what  he  saw  to 
others ;  his  memory  neither  forgot  nor  forgave.  Very 
hateful  to  his  fervid  heart  and  sincere  mind  would  have 
been  the  modern  theory  which  deals  with  sin  as  invol 
untary  error,  and  by  shifting  off  the  fault  to  the  shoul 
ders  of  Atavism  or  those  of  Society,  personified  for  pur 
poses  of  excuse,  but  escaping  into  impersonality  again 
from  the  grasp  of  retribution,  weakens  that  sense  of 
personal  responsibility  which  is  the  root  of  self-respect 
and  the  safeguard  of  character.  Dante  indeed  saw 
clearly  enough  that  the  Divine  justice  did  at  length 
overtake  Society  in  the  ruin  of  states  caused  by  the 
corruption  of  private,  and  thence  of  civic,  morals ;  but 
a  personality  so  intense  as  his  could  not  be  satisfied 
with  such  a  tardy  and  generalized  penalty  as  this.  "  It 
is  Thou,"  he  says  sternly,  "  who  hast  done  this  thing, 
and  Thou,  not  Society,  shalt  be  damned  for  it ;  nay, 
damned  all  the  worse  for  this  paltry  subterfuge.  This 
is  not  my  judgment,  but  that  of  universal  Nature  t 
from  before  the  beginning  of  the  world."  }  Accordingly 
the  highest  reason,  typified  in  his  guide  Virgil,  rebukes 
him  for  bringing  compassion  to  the  judgments  of  God,  § 

*  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  16. 

t  La  natura  universale,  doe  Iddio.     ( Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  4. ) 

j  Inferno,  III.  7,  8. 

§  Inferno,  XX.  30.     Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  strangely  enough  renders 


DANTE.  51 

and  again  embraces  him  and  calls  the  mother  that  bore 
him  blessed,  when  he  bids  Filippo  Argenti  begone 
among  the  other  dogs.*  This  latter  case  shocks  our 
modern  feelings  the  more  rudely  for  the  simple  pathos 
with  which  Dante  makes  Argenti  answer  when  asked 
who  he  was,  "  Thou  seest  I  am  one  that  weeps."  It  is 
also  the  one  that  makes  most  strongly  for  the  theory 
of  Dante's  personal  vindictiveness,t  and  it  may  count 
for  what  it  is  worth.  We  are  not  greatly  concerned  to 
defend  him  on  that  score,  for  he  believed  in  the  righ 
teous  use  of  anger,  and  that  baseness  was  its  legitimate 
quarry.  He  did  not  think  the  Tweeds  and  Fisks,  the 
political  wire-pullers  and  convention-packers,  of  his  day 
merely  amusing,  and  he  certainly  did  think  it  the  duty 
of  an  upright  and  thoroughly  trained  citizen  to  speak 
out  severely  and  unmistakably.  He  believed  firmly, 
almost  fiercely,  in  a  divine  order  of  the  universe,  a  con 
ception  whereof  had  been  vouchsafed  him,  and  that 
whatever  and  whoever  hindered  or  jostled  it,  whether 
wilfully  or  blindly  it  mattered  not,  was  to  be  got  out 

this  verse  "Who  hath  a  passion  for  God's  judgeship."  Compassion 
porta,  is  the  reading  of  the  best  texts,  and  Witte  adopts  it.  Buti's 
comment  is  "  cioe  porta  pena  e  dolore  di  colui  che  giustamente  e  con- 
dannato  da  Din  che  e  sempre  giuslo."  There  is  an  analogous  passage 
in  "The  Revelation  of  the  Apostle  Paul,"  printed  in  the  "Proceed 
ings  of  the  American  Oriental  Society"  (Vol.  VIII.  pp.  213,  214)  : 
"And  the  angel  answered  and  said,  'Wherefore  dost  thou  weep? 
Why !  art  thou  more  merciful  than  God  ? '  And  I  said,  '  God  forbid, 
0  my  lord  ;  for  God  is  good  and  long-suffering  unto  the  sons  of  men, 
and  he  leaves  every  one  of  them  to  his  own  will,  and  he  walks  as  he 
pleases.'  "  This  is  precisely  Dante's  view. 

*  Inferno,  VIII  40. 

t  "  I  following  her  (Moral  Philosophy)  in  the  work  as  well  as  the 
passion,  so  far  as  I  could,  abominated  and  disparaged  the  errors  of 
men,  not  to  the  infamy  and  shame  of  the  erring,  but  of  the  errors." 
(Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  1.)  "Wherefore  in  my  judgment  as  he  who 
defames  a  worthy  man  ought  to  be  avoided  by  people  and  not  listened 
to,  so  a  vile  man  descended  of  worthy  ancestors  ought  to  be  hunted 
out  by  all."  (Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  29.) 


52  DANTE. 

of  the  way  at  all  hazards  ;  because  obedience  to  God's 
law,  and  not  making  things  generally  comfortable,  was 
the  highest  duty  of  man,  as  it  was  also  his  only  way 
to  true  felicity.  It  has  been  commonly  assumed  that 
Dante  was  a  man  soured  by  undeserved  misfortune, 
that  he  took  up  a  wholly  new  outfit  of  political  opinions 
with  his  fallen  fortunes,  and  that  his  theory  of  life  and 
of  man's  relations  to  it  was  altogether  reshaped  for 
him  by  the  bitter  musings  of  his  exile.  This  would  be 
singular,  to  say  the  least,  in  a  man  who  tells  us  that  he 
"  felt  himself  indeed  four-square  against  the  strokes  of 
chance,"  and  whose  convictions  were  so  intimate  that 
they  were  not  merely  intellectual  conclusions,  but  parts 
of  his  moral  being.  Fortunately  we  are  called  on  to 
believe  nothing  of  the  kind.  Dante  himself  has  sup 
plied  us  with  hints  and  dates  which  enable  us  to  watch 
the  germination  and  trace  the  growth  of  his  double 
theory  of  government,  applicable  to  man  as  he  is  a 
citizen  of  this  world,  and  as  he  hopes  to  become  here 
after  a  freeman  of  the  celestial  city.  It  would  be  of 
little  consequence  to  show  in  which  of  two  equally  self 
ish  and  short-sighted  parties  a  man  enrolled  himself  six 
hundred  yeai-s  ago,  but  it  is  worth  something  to  know 
that  a  man  of  ambitious  temper  and  violent  passions, 
aspiring  to  office  in  a  city  of  factions,  could  rise  to  a 
level  of  principle  so  far  above  them  all.  Dante's  opin 
ions  have  life  in  them  still,  because  they  were  drawn 
from  living  sources  of  reflection  and  experience,  because 
they  were  reasoned  out  from  the  astronomic  laws  of  his 
tory  and  ethics,  and  were  not  weather-guesses  snatched 
in  a  glance  at  the  doubtful  political  sky  of  the  hour. 

Swiftly  the  politic  goes  :  is  it  dark  ?  he  borrows  a  lantern  ; 
Slowly  the  statesman  and  sure,  guiding  his  feet  by  the  stars. 

It  will  be  well,  then,  to  clear   up   the  chronology  of 


DANTE.  53 

Dante's  thought.  When  his  ancestor  Cacciaguida  proph 
esies  to  him  the  life  which  is  to  be  his  after  1300,*  he 
says,  speaking  of  his  exile  :  — 

"  And  that  which  most  shall  weigh  upon  thy  shoulders 
Will  be  the  bad  and  foolish  company 
With  which  into  this  valley  thou  shalt  fall ; 

Of  their  bestiality  their  own  proceedings 
Shall  furnish  proof ;  so  'twill  be  well  for  thee 
A  party  to  have  made  thee  by  thyself." 

Here  both  context  and  grammatical  construction  (infal 
lible  guides  in  a  writer  so  scrupulous  and  exact)  imply 
irresistibly  that  Dante  had  become  a  party  by  himself 
before  his  exile.  The  measure  adopted  by  the  Priors 
of  Florence  while  he  was  one  of  them  (with  his  assent 
and  pi'obably  by  his  counsel),  of  sending  to  the  frontier 
the  leading  men  of  both  factions,  confirms  this  implica 
tion.  Among  the  persons  thus  removed  from  the 
opportunity  of  doing  mischief  was  his  dearest  friend 
Guido  Cavalcanti,  to  whom  he  had  not  long  before 
addressed  the  Vita  Nuova.  t  Dante  evidently  looked 
back  with  satisfaction  on  his  conduct  at  this  time,  and 
thought  it  both  honest  and  patriotic,  as  it  certainly 
was  disinterested.  "  We  whose  country  is  the  world, 
as  the  ocean  to  the  fish,"  he  tells  us,  "though  we 
drank  of  the  Arno  in  infancy,  and  love  Florence  so 
much  that,  because  we  loved  her,  we  suffer  exile  unjustly, 
support  the  shoulders  of  our  judgment  rather  upon 
reason  than  the  senses."  £  And  again,  speaking  of  old 

*  Paradise,  XVII.  61-69. 

t  It  is  worth  mentioning  that  the  sufferers  in  his  Inferno  are  in  like 
manner  pretty  exactly  divided  between  the  two  parties.  This  is 
answer  enough  to  the  charge  of  partiality.  He  even  puts  persons 
there  for  whom  he  felt  affection  (as  Brunetto  Latiui)  and  respect  (as 
Farinata  degli  Uberti  and  Frederick  II.).  Till  the  French  looked  up 
their  MSS.,  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  the  beccajo  di  Parigi  (Pur- 
gatorio,  XX.  52)  was  a  drop  of  Dante's  gall.  "Ce  fu  Huez  Capez  c'  on 
apelle  bouchier."  Hugues  Capet,  p.  1. 

J  De  Vulgar!  Eloquio,  Lib.  I.  Cap.  VI.     Cf.  Inferno,  XV.  61-64. 


54  DANTE. 

age,  he  says  :  "  And  the  noble  soul  at  this  age  blesses 
also  the  times  past,  and  well  may  bless  them,  because, 
revolving  them  in  memory,  she  recalls  her  righteous 
conduct,  without  which  she  could  not  enter  the  port  to 
which  she  draws  nigh,  with  so  much  riches  and  so  great 
gain."  This  language  is  not  that  of  a  man  who  regrets 
some  former  action  as  mistaken,  still  less  of  one  who 
repented  it  for  any  disastrous  consequences  to  himself. 
So,  in  justifying  a  man  for  speaking  of  himself,  he 
alleges  two  examples,  —  that  of  Boethius,  who  did  so 
to  "  clear  himself  of  the  perpetual  infamy  of  his  exile  "  ; 
and  that  of  Augustine,  "  for,  by  the  process  of  his  life, 
which  was  from  bad  to  good,  from  good  to  better,  and 
from  better  to  best,  he  gave  us  example  and  teach 
ing."*  After  middle  life,  at  least,  Dante  had  that 
wisdom  "  whose  use  brings  with  it  marvellous  beauties, 
that  is,  contentment  with  every  condition  of  time,  and 
contempt  of  those  things  which  others  make  their  mas 
ters.'^  If  Dante,  moreover,  wrote  his  treatise  De 
Monarchid  before  1302,  and  we  think  Witte's  infer 
ence,  |  from  its  style  and  from  the  fact  that  he  nowhere 
alludes  to  his  banishment  in  it,  conclusive  on  this 
point,  then  he  was  already  a  Ghibelline  in  the  same 
larger  and  unpartisan  sense  which  ever  after  distin 
guished  him  from  his  Italian  contemporaries. 

"  Let,  let  the  Ghibellines  ply  their  handicraft 
Beneath  some  other  standard  ;  for  this  ever 
111  follows  he  who  it  and  justice  parts," 

he  makes  Justinian  say,  speaking  of  the  Roman  eagle.  § 
His  Ghibellinism,  though  undoubtedly  the  result  of 
what  he  had  seen  of  Italian  misgovernment,  embraced 

*  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  23.     Ib.  Tr.  I.  c.  2. 
t  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  13. 

t  Opp.  Miri'.,  eel.  Fraticelli,  Vol.  II.  pp.  281  and  283.    Witte  is  in 
clined  to  put  it  even  earlier  than  1300,  and  we  believe  he  is  right. 
§  Paradiso,  VI.  103  - 105. 


DAXTE.  55 

in  its  theoretical  application  the  civilized  world.  His 
political  system,  was  one  which  his  reason  adopted,  not 
for  any  temporary  expediency,  but  because  it  conduced 
to  justice,  peace,  and  civilization,  — the  three  conditions 
on  which  alone  freedom  was  possible  in  any  sense  which 
made  it  worth  having.  Dante  was  intensely  Italian, 
nay,  intensely  Florentine,  but  on  all  great  questions  he 
was,  by  the  logical  structure  of  his  mind  and  its  philo 
sophic  impartiality,  incapable  of  intellectual  provincial 
ism.*  If  the  circle  of  his  affections,  as  with  persistent 
natures  commonly,  was  narrow,  his  thought  swept  a 
broad  horizon  from  that  tower  of  absolute  self  which  he 
had  reared  for  its  speculation.  Even  upon  the  principles 
of  poetry,  mechanical  and  other,  f  he  had  reflected  more 
profoundly  than  most  of  those  who  criticise  his  work, 
and  it  was  not  by  chance  that  he  discovered  the  secret 
of  that  magical  word  too  few,  which  not  only  distin 
guishes  his  verse  from  all  other,  but  so  strikingly  from 
his  own  prose.  He  never  took  the  bit  of  art  |  be- 

*  Some  Florentines  have  amusingly  enough,  doubted  the  genuine 
ness  of  the  De  vulgari  Eloquio,  because  Dante  therein  denies  the  pre 
eminence  of  the  Tuscan  dialect. 

f  See  particularly  the  second  book  of  the  De  vulgari  Eloquio. 

j  Purgatorio,  XXXIII.  141.  "That  thing  one  calls  beautiful 
whose  parts  answer  to  each  other,  because  pleasure  results  from  their 
harmony."  (Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  5.)  Carlyle  says  that  "he  knew  too, 
partly,  that  his  work  was  great,  the  greatest  a  man  could  do."  He 
knew  it  fully.  Telling  us  how  Giotto's  fame  as  a  painter  had  eclipsed 
that  of  Cimabue,  he  takes  an  example  from  poetry  also,  and  selecting 
two  Italian  poets, —  one  the  most  famous  of  his  predecessors,  the  other 
of  his  contemporaries, — calmly  sets  himself  above  them  both  (Purga 
torio,  XI.  97-99),  and  gives  the  reason  for  his  supremacy  (Purgatorio, 
XXIV.  49-62).  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Amore  in  the  latter  pas 
sage  does  not  mean  love  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  in  that  transcenden 
tal  one  set  forth  in  the  Convito, — that  state  of  the  soul  which  opens 
it  for  the  descent  of  God's  spirit,  to  make  it  over  into  his  own  image. 
"  Therefore  it  is  manifest  that  in  this  love  the  Divine  virtue  descends 
into  men  in  the  guise  of  an  angel,  ....  and  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the 
descending  of  the  virtue  of  one  thing  into  another  is  nothing  else  than 
reducing  it  to  its  own  likeness."  (Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  14.) 


56  DANTE. 

tween  his  teeth  where  only  poetry,  and  not  doctrine, 
•was  concerned. 

If  Dante's  philosophy,  on  the  one  hand,  -was  practical, 
a  guide  for  the  conduct  of  life,  it  was,  on  the  other,  a 
much  more  transcendent  thing,  whose  body  was  wisdom, 
her  soul  love,  and  her  efficient  cause  truth.  It  is  a 
practice  of  wisdom  from  the  mere  love  of  it,  for  so  we 
must  interpret  his  amoroso  uso  di  sapienzia,  when  we  re 
member  how  he  has  said  before  *  that  "  the  love  of  wis 
dom  for  its  delight  or  profit  is  not  true  love  of  wisdom." 
And  this  love  must  embrace  knowledge  in  all  its 
branches,  for  Dante  is  content  with  nothing  less  than  a 
pancratic  training,  and  has  a  scorn  of  dilettanti,  special 
ists,  and  quacks.  "  Wherefore  none  ought  to  be  called 
a  true  philosopher  who  for  any  delight  loves  any  part 
of  knowledge,  as  there  are  many  who  delight  in  com 
posing  Canzoni,  Tind  delight  to  be  studious  in  them,  and 
who  delight  to  be  studious  in  rhetoric  and  in  music,  and 
flee  and  abandon  the  other  sciences  which  are  all  mem 
bers  of  wisdom."  f  "  Many  love  better  to  be  held  mas 
ters  than  to  be  so."  With  him  wisdom  is  the  general 
ization  from  many  several  knowledges  of  small  account 
by  themselves  ;  it  results  therefore  from  breadth  of  cul 
ture,  and  would  be  impossible  without  it.  Philosophy 
is  a  noble  lady  (donna  yentil  £),  partaking  of  the  divine 

*  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  11.     Ib.  Tr.  I.  c.  11. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  12-15. 

J  Inferno,  II.  94.  The  donna  genlil  is  Lncia,  the  prevenient  Grace, 
the  light  of  God  which  shows  the  right  path  and  guides  the  feet  in  it. 
With  Dante  God  is  always  the  sun,  "  which  leadeth  others  right  by 
every  road."  (Inferno,  I.  18.)  "The  spiritual  and  unintelligible  Sun, 
•which  is  God."  (Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  12.)  His  light  "  enlighteneth 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world,"  but  his  dwelling  is  in  the 
heavens.  He  who  wilfully  deprives  himself  of  this  light  is  spiritually 
dead  in  sin.  So  when  in  Mars  he  beholds  the  glorified  spirits  of  the 
martyrs  he  exclaims,  "  0  Elios,  who  so  arrayest  them !  "  (Paradiso, 
XIV.  96.)  Blanc  (Vocabolario,  sub  voce)  rejects  this  interpretation. 
But  Dante,  entering  the  abode  of  the  Blessed,  invokes  the  "good 


DANTE.  57 

essence  by  a  kind  of  eternal  marriage,  while  with  other 
intelligences  she  is  united  in  a  less  measure  "  as  a  mis 
tress  of  whom  no  lover  takes  complete  joy."  *  The  eyes 
of  this  lady  are  her  demonstrations,  and  her  smile  is  her 
persuasion.  "  The  eyes  of  wisdom  are  her  demonstra 
tions  by  which  truth,  is  beheld  most  certainly  ;  and  her 
smile  is  her  persuasions  in  which  the  interior  light  of 
wisdom  is  shown  under  a  certain  veil,  and  in  these  two 
is  felt  that  highest  pleasure  of  beatitude  which  is  the 
greatest  good  in  paradise."t  "  It  is  to  be  known  that 
the  beholding  this  lady  was  so  largely  ordained  for  us, 
not  merely  to  look  upon  the  face  which  she  shows  us, 
but  that  we  may  desire  to  attain  the  things  which  she 
keeps  concealed.  And  as  through  her  much  thereof  is 
seen  by  reason,  so  by  her  we  believe  that  every  miracle 
may  have  its  reason  in  a  higher  intellect,  and  conse 
quently  may  be.  Whence  our  good  faith  has  its  origin, 
whence  comes  the  hope  of  those  unseen  things  which  we 
desire,  and  through  that  the  operation  of  charity,  by 
the  which  three  virtues  we  rise  to  philosophize  in  that 
celestial  Athens  whei'e  the  Stoics,  Peripatetics,  and 
Epicureans  through  the  art  of  eternal  truth  accordingly 
concur  in  one  will."  ^ 

Apollo,"  ami  shortly  after  calls  him  divina  virtu.  We  shall  have  more 
to  say  of  this  hereafter. 

*  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  12. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  15.  Recalling  how  the  eyes  of  Beatrice  lift 
her  servant  through  the  heavenly  spheres,  and  that  smile  of  hers  so 
often  dwelt  on  with  rapture,  we  see  how  Dante  was  in  the  habit  of 
commenting  and  illustrating  his  own  works.  We  must  remember 
always  that  with  him  the  allegorical  exposition  is  the  true  one  (Con 
vito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  1),  the  allegory  being  a  truth  which  is  hidden  under  a 
beautiful  falsehood  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  1),  and  that  Dante  thought  his 
poems  without  this  exposition  "under  some  shade  of  obscurity,  so 
that  to  many  their  beauty  was  more  grateful  than  their  goodness  " 
(Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  1),  "because  the  goodness  is  in  the  meaning,  and 
the  beauty  in  the  ornament  of  the  words  "  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  12). 

t  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  14. 
3* 


58  DANTE. 

As  to  the  double  scope  of  Dante's  philosophy  we  will 
cite  a  passage  from  the  Convito,  all  the  more  to  our  pur 
pose  as  it  will  illustrate  his  own  method  of  allegorizing. 
"  Verily  the  use  of  our  mind  is  double,  that  is,  practical 
and  speculative,  the  one  and  the  other  most  delightful, 
although  that  of  contemplation  be  the  more  so.  That 
of  the  practical  is  for  us  to  act  virtuously,  that  is,  hon 
orably,  with  prudence,  temperance,  fortitude,  and  jus 
tice.  [These  are  the  four  stars  seen  by  Dante,  Purgato- 
rio,  I.  22  -  27.]  That  of  the  speculative  is  not  to  act  for 
ourselves,  but  to  consider  the  works  of  God  and  nature. 
....  Verily  of  these  uses  one  is  more  full  of  beatitude 
than  the  other,  as  it  is  the  speculative,  which  without 

any  admixture  is  the  use  of  our  noblest  part 

And  this  part  in  this  life  cannot  have  its  use  perfectly, 
which  is  to  see  God,  except  inasmuch  as  the  intellect 
considers  him  and  beholds  him  through  his  effects.  And 
that  we  should  seek  this  beatitude  as  the  highest,  and 
not  the  other,  the  Gospel  of  Mark  teaches  us  if  we  will 
look  well.  Mark  says  that  Mary  Magdalene,  Mary  the 
mother  of  James,  and  Mary  Salome  went  to  find  the 
Saviour  at  the  tomb  and  found  him  not,  but  found  a 
youth  clad  in  white  who  said  to  them,  '  Ye  seek  the 
Saviour,  and  I  say  unto  you  that  he  is  not  here  ;  and 
yet  fear  ye  not,  but  go  and  say  unto  his  disciples  and 
Peter  that  he  will  go  before  them  into  Galilee,  and  there 
ye  shall  see  him  even  as  he  told  you.'  By  these  three 
women  may  be  understood  the  three  sects  of  the  active 
life,  that  is,  the  Epicm-eans,  the  Stoics,  and  the  Peri 
patetics,  who  go  to  the  tomb,  that  is,  to  the  present 
life,  which  is  a  receptacle  of  things  corruptible,  and  seek 
the  Saviour,  that  is,  beatitude,  and  find  him  not,  but 
they  find  a  youth  in  white  raiment,  who,  according  to 
the  testimony  of  Matthew  and  the  rest,  was  an  angel  of 
God.  This  angel  is  that  nobleness  of  ours  which  comes 


DANTE.  59 

from  God,  as  hath  been  said,  which  speaks  in  our  reason 
and  says  to  each  of  these  sects,  that  is,  to  whoever  goes 
seeking  beatitude  in  this  life,  that  it  is  not  here,  but  go 
and  say  to  the  disciples  and  to  Peter,  that  is,  to  those 
who  go  seeking  it  and  those  who  are  gone  astray  (like 
Peter  who  had  denied),  that  it  will  go  before  them  into 
Galilee,  that  is,  into  speculation.  Galilee  is  as  much 
as  to  say  Whiteness.  Whiteness  is  a  body  full  of  cor 
poreal  light  more  than  any  other,  and  so  contemplation 
is  fuller  of  spiritual  light  than  anything  else  here  below. 
And  he  says,  '  it  will  go  before,'  and  does  not  say,  '  it 
will  be  with  you,'  to  give  us  to  understand  that  God 
always  goes  before  our  contemplation,  nor  can  we  ever 
overtake  here  Him  who  is  our  supreme  beatitude.  And 
it  is  said,  '  There  ye  shall  see  him  as  he  told  you,'  that 
is,  here  ye  shall  have  of  his  sweetness,  that  is,  felicity, 
as  is  promised  you  here,  that  is,  as  it  is  ordained  that 
ye  can  have.  And  thus  it  appears  that  we  find  our 
beatitude,  this  felicity  of  which  we  are  speaking,  first 
imperfect  in  the  active  life,  that  is,  in  the  operations  of 
the  moral  virtues,  and  afterwards  wellnigh  perfect  in. 
the  operation  of  the  intellectual  ones,  the  which  two 
operations  are  speedy  and  most  direct  ways  to  lead  to 
the  supreme  beatitude,  the  which  cannot  be  had  here, 
as  appears  by  what  has  been  said."  * 

At  first  sight  there  may  seem  to  be  some  want  of 
agreement  in  what  Dante  says  here  of  the  soul's  incapa 
city  of  the  vision  of  God  in  this  life  with  the  triumphant 
conclusion  of  his  own  poem.  But  here  as  elsewhere  Dante 
must  be  completed  and  explained  by  himself.  "  We  must 
know  that  everything  most  greatly  desires  its  own  per 
fection,  and  in  that  its  every  desire  is  appeased,  and  by 
that  everything  is  desired.  [That  is,  the  one  is  drawn 

*  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  22. 


60  DANTE. 

toward,  the  other  draws.]  And  this  is  that  desire  which 
makes  every  delight  maimed,  for  no  delight  is  so  great 
in  this  life  that  it  can  take  away  from  the  soul  this 
thirst  so  that  desire  remain  n6t  in  the  thought."  * 
"And  since  it  is  most  natural  to  wish  to  be  in  God,  the 
human  soul  naturally  wills  it  with  all  longing.  And 
since  its  being  depends  on  God  and  is  preserved  thereby, 
it  naturally  desires  and  wills  to  be  united  with  God  in 
order  to  fortify  its  being.  And  since  in  the  goodnesses 
of  human  nature  is  shown  some  reason  for  those  of  the 
Divine,  it  follows  that  the  human  soul  unites  itself  in  a 
spiritual  way  with  those  so  much  the  more  strongly  and 
quickly  as  they  appear  more  perfect,  and  this  appearance 
happens  according  as  the  knowledge  of  the  soul  is  clear 
or  impeded.  And  this  union  is  what  we  call  Love, 
whereby  may  be  known  what  is  within  the  soul,  seeing 

those  it  outwardly  loves And  the  human  soul 

which  is  ennobled  with  the  ultimate  potency,  that  is, 
reason,  participates  in  the  Divine  nature  after  the  man 
ner  of  an  eternal  Intelligence,  because  the  soul  is  so 
ennobled  and  denuded  of  matter  in  that  sovran  potency 
that  the  Divine  light  shines  in  it  as  in  an  angel."  f  This 
union  with  God  may  therefore  take  place  before  the 
warfare  of  life  is  over,  but  is  only  possible  for  souls 
perfettamente  naturati,  perfectly  endowed  by  nature.  J 
This  depends  on  the  virtue  of  the  generating  soul  and 
the  concordant  influence  of  the  planets.  "  And  if  it 
happen  that  through  the  purity  of  the  recipient  soul, 

*  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  6. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  2.  By  potenzia  and  potenza  Dante  means  the 
faculty  of  receiving  influences  or  impressions.  (Paradiso,  Xlll.  61 ; 
XXIX.  34.)  Reason  is  the  "sovran  potency"  because  it  makes  us 
capable  of  God. 

t  "  0  thou  well-born,  unto  whom  Grace  concedes 
To  see  the  thrones  of  the  Eternal  triumph, 
Oreveryetthe  warfare  be  abandoned. "—Paradiso,  V.  115-118. 


DANTE.  61 

the  intellectual  virtue  be  well  abstracted  and  absolved 
from  every  corporeal  shadow,  the  Divine  bounty  is  mul 
tiplied  in  it  as  in  a  thing  sufficient  to  receive  the 
same."  *  "  And  there  are  some  who  believe  that  if  all 
the  aforesaid  virtues  [powers]  should  unite  for  the  pro 
duction  of  a  soul  in  their  best  disposition,  so  much  of 
the  Deity  would  descend  into  it  that  it  would  be  almost 
another  incarnate  God."  t  Did  Dante  believe  himself 
to  be  one  of  these  ?  He  certainly  gives  us  reason  to 
think  so.  He  was  born  under  fortunate  stars,  as  he 
twice  tells  us,+  and  he  puts  the  middle  of  his  own  life 
at  the  thirty-fifth  year,  which  is  the  period  he  assigns 
for  it  in  the  diviner  sort  of  men.  § 

The  stages  of  Dante's  intellectual  and  moral  growth 
may,  we  think,  be  reckoned  with  some  approach  to 
exactness  from  data  supplied  by  himself.  In  the  poems 
of  the  Vita  Nuova,  Beatrice,  until  her  death,  was  to 
him  simply  a  poetical  ideal,  a  type  of  abstract  beauty, 
chosen  according  to  the  fashion  of  the  day  after  the 
manner  of  the  Proven9al  poets,  but  in  a  less  carnal 
sense  than  theirs.  "  And  by  the  fourth  nature  of  ani 
mals,  that  is,  the  sensitive,  man  has  another  love  where 
by  he  loves  according  to  sensible  appearance,  even  as  a 

beast And  by  the  fifth  and  final  nature,  that  is, 

the  truly  human,  or,  to  speak  better,  angelic,  that  is, 

rational,  man  has  a  love  for  truth  and  virtue 

Wherefore,  since  this  nature  is  called  mind,  I  said  that 
love  discoursed  in  my  mind  to  make  it  understood  that 
this  love  was  that  which  is  born  in  the  noblest  of  na 
tures,  that  is,  [the  love]  of  truth  and  virtue,  and  to  shut 
out  every  false  opinion  by  which  it  miglit  be  suspected  that 

*  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  21. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  7. 

}  Inferno,  X.  55,  56  ;  Paradise,- XXII.  112-117. 

§  Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  23  (cf.  Inferno,  I.  IV). 


62  DANTE. 

my  love  was  for  the  delight  of  sense."  *  This  is  a  very 
weighty  affirmation,  made,  as  it  is,  so  deliberately  by  a 
man  of  Dante's  veracity,  who  would  and  did  speak  truth 
at  every  hazard.  Let  us  dismiss  at  once  and  forever  all 
the  idle  tales  of  Dante's  amours,  of  la  Montanina,  Gen- 
tucca,  Pietra,  Lisetta,  and  the  rest,  to  that  outer  darkness 
of  impure  thoughts  Id,  onde  la  stoltezza  dipartille.\  We 
think  Miss  Rossetti  a  little  hasty  in  allowing  that  in  the 
.years  which  immediately  followed  Beatrice's  death  Dante 
gave  himself  up  "  more  or  less  to  sensual  gratification 
and  earthly  aim."  The  earthly  aim  we  in  a  certain 
sense  admit ;  the  sensual  gratification  we  reject  as  ut 
terly  inconsistent,  not  only  with  Dante's  principles,  but 
with  his  character  and  indefatigable  industry.  Miss 

*  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  3  ;  Paradise,  XVIII.  108-130. 

f  See  an  excellent  discussion  and  elucidation  of  this  matter  by  Witte, 
who  so  highly  deserves  the  gratitude  of  all  students  of  Dante,  in  Dante 
Alighieri's  Lyrische  Gedichte,  Theil  II.  pp.  48-57.  It  was  kindly  old 
Boccaccio,  who,  without*  thinking  any  harm,  first  set  this  nonsense 
a  going.  His  "  Life  of  Dante  "  is  mainly  a  rhetorical  exercise.  After 
making  Dante's  marriage  an  excuse  for  revamping  all  the  old  slanders 
against  matrimony,  he  adds  gravely,  "  Certainly  I  do  not  affirm  these 
things  to  have  happened  to  Dante,  for  I  do  not  know  it,  though  it  be 
true  that  (whether  things  like  these  or  others  were  the  cause  of  it), 
once  parted  from  her,  he  would  never  come  where  she  was  nor  suffer 
her  to  come  where  he  was,  for  all  that  she  was  the  mother  of  several 
children  by  him."  That  he  did  not  come  to  her  is  not  wonderful,  for 
he  would  have  been  burned  alive  if  he  had.  Dante  could  not  send  for 
her  because  he  was  a  homeless  wanderer.  She  remained  in  Florence 
with  her  children  because  she  had  powerful  relations  aftd  perhaps  prop 
erty  there.  It  is  plain,  also,  that  what  Boccaccio  says  of  Dante's  lus- 
swria  had  no  better  foundation.  It  gave  him  a  chance  to  turn  a  period. 
He  gives  no  particulars,  and  his  general  statement  is  simply  incredible. 
Lionardo  Bruni  and  Vellutello  long  ago  pointed  out  the  trifling  and 
fictitious  character  of  this  "Life."  Those  familiar  with  Dante's  alle 
gorical  diction  will  not  lay  much  stress  on  the  literal  meaning  of  par-' 
goletta  in  Purgatorio,  XXXI.  59.  Gentucca,  of  course,  was  a  real 
person,  one  of  those  who  had  shown  hospitality  to  the  exile.  Dante 
remembers  them  all  somewhere,  for  gratitude  (which  is  quite  as  rare 
as  genius)  was  one  of  the  virtues  of  his  unforgetting  nature.  Boccac 
cio's  "Comment"  is  later  and  far  more  valuable  than  the  "Life." 


DANTE.  63 

Rossetti  illustrates  her  position  by  a  subtle  remark  on 
"the  lulling  spell  of  an  intellectual  and  sensitive  delight 
in  good  running  parallel  with  a  voluntary  and  actual 
indulgence  in  evil."  The  dead  Beatrice  beckoned  him 
toward  the  life  of  contemplation,  and  it  was  precisely 
during  this  period  that  he  attempted  to  find  happiness 
in  the  life  of  action.  "  Verily  it  is  to  be  known  that 
we  may  in  this  life  have  two  felicities,  following  two 
ways,  good  and  best,  which  lead  us  thither.  The  one 
is  the  active,  the  other  the  contemplative  life,  the  which 
(though  by  the  active  we  may  attain,  as  has  been  said, 
unto  good  felicity)  leads  us  to  the  best  felicity  and 
blessedness."  *  "  The  life  of  my  heart,  that  is,  of  my 
inward  self,  was  wont  to  be  a  sweet  thought  which  went 
many  times  to  the  feet,  of  God,  that  is  to  say,  in  thought 
I  contemplated  the  kingdom  of  the  Blessed.  And  I  tell 
the  final  cause  why  I  mounted  thither  in  thought  when 
I  say,  '  Where  it  [the  sweet  thought]  beheld  a  lady  in 
glory,'  that  I  might  make  it  understood  that  I  was  and 
am  certain,  by  her  gracious  revelation,  that  she  was  in 
heaven,  [not  on  earth,  as  I  had  vainly  imagined,]  whither 
I  went  in  thought,  so  often  as  was  possible  to  me,  as  it 
•were  rapt."  t  This  passage  exactly  answers  to  another 
in  Purgatorio,  XXX.  115  -  138  :  — 

"  Not  only  by  the  work  of  those  great  wheels 
That  destine  every  seed  unto  some  end, 
According  as  the  stars  are  in  conjunction, 
But  by  the  largess  of  celestial  graces, 

Such  had  this  man  become  in  his  New  Life 
Potentially,  that  every  righteous  habit 
Would  have  made  admirable  proof  in  him  ; 

Some  time  I  did  sustain  him  with  my  look  (volto)  ; 
Revealing  unto  him  my  youthful  eyes, 

*  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  17  ;  Purgatorio,  XXVII.  100-108. 
t  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  8. 


64  DANTE. 

I  led  him  with  me  turned  in  the  right  way. 

As  soon  as  ever  of  my  second  age 

I  was  upon  the  threshold  and  changed  life, 

Himself  from  me  he  took  and  gave  to  others. 

When  from  the  flesh  to  spirit  1  ascended, 

And  beauty  and  virtue  were  in  me  increased, 

I  was  to  him  less  dear  and  less  delightful, 

And  into  ways  untrue  he  turned  his  steps, 

Pursuing  the  false  images  of  good 

That  never  any  promises  fulfil  * 

Nor  prayer  for  inspiration  me  availed, f 

By  means  of  which  in  dreams  and  otherwise 

I  called  him  back,  so  little  did  he  heed  them. 

So  low  he  fell,  that  all  appliances 

For  his  salvation  were  already  short 

Save  showing  him  the  people  of  perdition." 

Now  Dante  himself,  we  think,  gives  us  the  clew,  by  fol 
lowing  which  we  may  reconcile  the  contradiction,  what 
Miss  Rossetti  calls  "  the  astounding  discrepancy,"  be 
tween  the  Lady  of  the  Vita  Nuova  who  made  him 
unfaithful  to  Beatrice,  and  the  same  Lady  in  the  Con- 
vito,  who  in  attributes  is  identical  with  Beatrice  herself. 
We  must  remember  that  the  prose  part  of  the  Convito, 
which  is  a  comment  on  the  Canzoni,  was  written  after 
the  Canzoni  themselves.  How  long  after  we  cannot 
say  with  certainty,  but  it  was  plainly  composed  at 
intervals,  a  part  of  it  probably  after  Dante  had  entered 
upon  old  age  (which  began,  as  he  tells  us,  with  the 
forty -fifth  year),  consequently  after  1310.  Dante  had 
then  written  a  considerable  part  of  the  Divina  Comme- 
dia,  in  which  Beatrice  was  to  go  through  her  final  and 
most  ethereal  transformation  in  his  mind  and  memory. 
We  say  in  his  memory,  for  such  idealizations  have  a 

*  That  is,  wholly  fulfil,  rendono  intera. 
t  We  should  prefer  here, 

"  Nor  inspirations  won  by  prayer  availed," 

as  better  expressing  We  V-impetrare  spirazion.  Mr.  Longfellow's  trans 
lation  is  so  admirable  for.  its  exactness  as  well  as  its  beauty  that  it 
may  be  thankful  for  the  minutest  criticism,  such  only  being  possible. 


DANTE.  65 

very  subtle  retrospective  action,  and  the  new  condition 
of  feeling  or  thought  is  uneasy  till  it  has  half  uncon 
sciously  brought  into  harmony  whatever  is  inconsistent 
with  it  in  the  past.  The  inward  life  unwillingly  admits 
any  break  in  its  continuity,  and  nothing  is  more  com 
mon  than  to  hear  a  man,  in  venting  an  opinion  taken 
up  a  week  ago,  say  with  perfect  sincerity,  "  I  have 
always  thought  so  and  so."  Whatever  belief  occupies 
the  whole  mind  soon  produces  the  impression  on  us  of 
having  long  had  possession  of  it,  and  one  mode  of  con 
sciousness  blends  so  insensibly  with  another  that  it  is 
impossible  to  mark  by  an  exact  line  where  one  begins 
and  the  other  ends.  Dante  in  his  exposition  of  the 
Canzoni  must  have  been  subject  to  this  subtlest  and 
most  deceitful  of  influences.  He  would  try  to  reconcile  so 
far  as  he  conscientiously  could  his  present  with  his  past. 
This  he  could  do  by  means  of  the  allegorical  interpreta 
tion.  "  For  it  would  be  a  great  shame  to  him,"  he  says 
in  the  Vita  Nuova,  "  who  should  poetize  something  un 
der  the  vesture  of  some  figure  or  rhetorical  color,  and 
afterwards,  when  asked,  could  not  strip  his  words  of  that 
vesture  in  such  wise  that  they  should  have  a  true  mean 
ing."  Now  in  the  literal  exposition  of  the  Canzone  be 
ginning,  "  Voi  che  iutendendo  il  terzo  ciel  movete,"  * 
he  tells  us  that  the  grandezza  of  the  Donna  Gentil  was 
"  temporal  greatness "  (one  certainly  of  the  felicities 
attainable  by  way  of  the  vita  attiva),  and  immediately 
after  gives  us  a  hint  by  which  we  may  comprehend  why 
a  proud  t  man  might  covet  it.  "  How  much  wisdom 
and  how  great  a  persistence  in  virtue  (abito  virtuoso)  are 
hidden  for  want  of  this  lustre  !  "  |  When  Dante  reaches 

*  Which  he  cites  in  the  Paradise,  VIII.  37. 

t  Dante  confesses  his  guiltiness  of  the  sin  of  pride,  which  (as  ap 
pears  by  the  examples  he  gives  of  it)  included  ambition,  in  Purgato- 
rio,  XIII.  136,  137. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  11. 

E 


66  DANTE. 

the  Terrestrial  Paradise*  which  is  the  highest  felicity 
of  this  world,  and  therefore  the  consummation  of  the 
Active  Life,  he  is  welcomed  by  a  Lady  who  is  its 

symbol, 

"  Who  went  along 
Singing  and  culling  floweret  after  floweret." 

and  warming  herself  in  the  rays  of  Love,  or  "  actual 
speculation,"  that  is,  "where  love  makes  its  peace 
felt."f  That  she  was  the  symbol  of  this  is  evident 
from  the  previous  dream  of  Dante,  J  in  which  he  sees 
Leah,  the  universally  accepted  type  of  it, 

"  Walking  in  a  meadow, 

Gathering  flowers ;  and  singing  she  was  saying, 
'  Know  whosoever  may  my  name  demand 
That  I  am  Leah,  who  go  moving  round 
My  beauteous  hands  to  make  myself  a  garland,' " 

that  is  to  say,  of  good  works.  She,  having  "  washed 
him  thoroughly  from  sin,"  § 

"  All  dripping  brought 
Into  the  dance  of  the  four  beautiful,"  || 

who  are  the  intellectual  virtues  Prudence,  Justice,  Tem 
perance,  and  Fortitude,  the  four  stars,  guides  of  the 
Practical  Life,  which  he  had  seen  when  he  came  out 
of  the  Hell  where  he  had  beheld  the  results  of  sin,  and 
arrived  at  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  Purification.  That 
these  were  the  special  virtues  of  practical  goodness 
Dante  had  already  told  us  in  a  passage  before  quoted 

*  Purgatorio,  XXVIII. 

t  Purgatorio,  XXVIII.  40-44  ;  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  13. 

t  Purgatorio,  XXVII.  94-105. 

§  Psalm  li.  2.  "And  therefore  I  say  that  her  [Philosophy's] 
beauty,  that  is,  morality,  rains  flames  of  fire,  that  is,  a  righteous 
appetite  which  is  generated  in  the  love  of  moral  doctrine,  the  which 
appetite  removes  us  from  the  natural  as  well  as  other  vices."  (Con 
vito,  Tr.  III.  c.  15.) 

U  Purgatorio,  XXXI.  103, 104. 


DANTE.   -  67 

from  the  Convito.*  That  this  was  Dante's  meaning  is 
confirmed  by  what  Beatrice  says  to  him,f 

"  Short  while  shalt  them  be  here  a  forester  (silvano) 
And  thou  shalt  be  with  me  forevermore 
A  citizen  of  that  Rome  where  Christ  is  Roman  "  ; 

for  by  a  "  forest "  he  always  means  the  world  of  life  and 
action.  J  At  the  time  when  Dante  was  writing  the 
C'anzoni  on  which  the  Convito  was  a  comment,  he  be 
lieved  science  to  be  the  "  ultimate  perfection  itself,  and 
not  the  way  to  it,"  §  but  before  the  Convito  was  com 
posed  he  had  become  aware  of  a  higher  and  purer  light, 
an  inward  light,  in  that  Beatrice,  already  clarified  well- 
nigh  to  a  mere  image  of  the  mind,  "who  lives  in 
heaven  with  the  angels,  and  on  earth  with  my  soul."  || 

So  spiritually  does  Dante  always  present  Beatrice  to 
us,  even  where  most  corporeal,  as  in  the  Vita  Nuova, 
that  many,  like  Biscione  and  Rossetti,  have  doubted 
her  real  existence.  But  surely  we  must  consent  to 
believe  that  she  who  speaks  of 

"  The  fair  limbs  wherein 
I  was  enclosed,  which  scattered  are  in  earth," 

was  once  a  creature  of  flesh  and  blood,  — 

"  A  creature  not  too  bright  and  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food." 

When  she  died,  Dante's  grief,  like  that  of  Constance, 
filled  her  room  up  with  something  fairer  than  the 
reality  had  ever  been.  There  is  no  idealizer  like  una 
vailing  regret,  all  the  more  if  it  be  a  regret  of  fancy 
as  much  as  of  real  feeling.  She  early  began  to  undergo 

*  Tr.  IV.  c.  22. 
t  Purgatorio,  100-102. 

J  Such  is  the  selva  oscura  (Inferno,  I.  2),  such  the  selva  erronea  di 
questa  vita  (Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  24). 
§  Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  13. 
||  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  2. 


68  DANTE. 

that  change  into  something  rich  and  strange  in  the 
sea  *  of  -his  mind  which  so  completely  supernaturalized 
her  at  last.  It  is  not  impossible,  we  think,  to  follow 
the  process  of  transformation.  During  the  period  of 
the  Convito  Canzoni,  when  he  had  so  given  himself  to 
•study  that  to  his  weakened  eyes  "the  stars  were  shad 
owed  with  a  white  blur,"  t  this  star  of  his  imagination 
was  eclipsed  for  a  time  with  the  rest.  As  his  love  had 
never  been  of  the  senses  (which  is  bestial  +),  so  his 
sorrow  was  all  the  more  ready  to  be  irradiated  with 
celestial  light,  and  to  assume  her  to  be  the  transmitter 
of  it  who  had  first  awakened  in  him  the  nobler  impulses 
of  his  nature,  — 

("  Such  had  this  man  become  in  his  New  Life 
Potentially,") 

and  given  him  the  first  hints  of  a  higher,  nay,  of  the 
highest  good.  With  that  turn  for  double  meaning  and 
abstraction  which  was  so  strong  in  him,  her  very  name 
helped  him  to  allegorize  her  into  one  who  makes  blessed 
(beat),  and  thence  the  step  was  a  short  one  to  personify- 
in  her  that  Theosophy  which  enables  man  to  see  God 
and  to  be  mystically  united  with  him  even  in  the  flesh. 
Already,  in  the  Vita  Nuova,§  she  appears  to  him  as 
afterwards  in  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  clad  in  that 
color  of  flame  which  belongs  to  the  seraphim  who  con 
template  God  in  himself,  simply,  and  not  in  his  relation 
to  the  Son  or  the  Holy  Spirit.  ||  When  misfortune 
came  upon  him,  when  his  schemes  of  worldly  activity 
failed,  and  science  was  helpless  to  console,  as  it  had 

*  Mar  di  tutto  il  senno,  he  calls  Virgil  (Inferno,  VIII.  7).  Those 
familiar  with  his  own  works  will  think  the  phrase  singularly  appli 
cable  to  himself. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  9. 

j  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  3. 

§  Vita  Nuova,  XI. 

||  Vita  Nuova,  Tr.  II.  c.  6. 


DANTE.  69 

never  been  able  wholly  to  satisfy,  she  already  rose 
before  him  as  the  lost  ideal  of  his  youth,  reproaching 
him  with  his  desertion  of  purely  spiritual  aims.  It  is, 
perhaps,  in  allusion  to  this  that  he  fixes  the  date  of  her 
death  with  such  minute  precision  on  the  9th  June, 
1390,  most  probably  his  -own  twenty -fifth  birthday,  on 
which  he  passed  the  boundary  of  adolescence.* 

That  there  should  seem  to  be  a  discrepancy  between 
the  Lady  of  the  Vita  Nuova  and  her  of  the  Convito, 
Dante  himself  was  already  aware  when  writing  the  for 
mer  and  commenting  it.  Explaining  the  sonnet  begin 
ning  Gentil  pensier,  he  says,  "  In  this  sonnet  I  make 
two  parts  of  myself  according  as  my  thoughts  were 
divided  in  two.  The  one  part  I  call  heart,  that  is, 

the  appetite,  the  other  soul,  that  is,  reason It 

is  true  that  in  the  preceding  sonnet  I  take  side  with 
the  heart  against  the  eyes  [which  were  weeping  for  the 
lost  Beatrice],  and  that  appears  contrary  to  what  I  say 
in  the  present  one ;  and  therefore  I  say  that  in  that- 
sounet  also  I  mean  by  my  heart  the  appetite,  because 
my  desire  to  remember  me  of  my  most  gentle  Lady 
was  still  greater  than  to  behold  this  one,  albeit  I  had 
already  some  appetite  for  her,  but  slight  as  should 
seem :  whence  it  appears  that  the  one  saying  is  not 
contrary  to  the  other."  t  When,  therefore,  Dante  speaks 
of  the  love  of  this  Lady  as  the  " adversary  of  Reason" 
he  uses  the  word  in  its  highest  sense,  not  as  understand 
ing  (Intellectus),  but  as  synonymous  with  soul.  Already, 

*  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  24.  The  date  of  Dante's  birth  is  uncertain, 
but  the  period  he  assigns  for  it  (Paradise,  XXII.  112-117)  extends 
from  the  middle  of  May  to  the  middle  of  June.  If  we  understand 
Buti's  astrological  comment,  the  day  should  fall  in  June  rather  than 
May. 

t  Vita  Nuova,  XXXIX.  Compare  for  a  different  view,  "  The  New 
Life  of  Dante,  an  Essay  with  Translations,"  by  C.  E.  Norton,  pp.  92 
et  seq. 


70  DANTE. 

when  the  latter  part  of  the  Vita  Nuova,  nay,  perhaps 
the  whole  of  the  explanatory  portion  of  it,  was  written, 
the  plan  of  the  Commedia  was  complete,  a  poem  the 
higher  aim  of  which  was  to  keep  the  soul  alive  both  in 
this  world  and  for  the  next.  As  Dante  tells  us,  the 
contradiction  in  his  mind  was,  though  he  did  not  be 
come  aware  of  it  till  afterwards,  more  apparent  than 
real.  He  sought  consolation  in  study,  and,  failing  to 
find  it  in  Learning  (scienza),  he  was  led  to  seek  it  in 
Wisdom  (sapienza),  which  is  the  love  of  God  and  the 
knowledge  of  him.*  He  had  sought  happiness  through 
the  understanding ;  he  was  to  find  it  through  intuition. 
The  lady  Philosophy  (according  as  she  is  moral  or  in 
tellectual)  includes  both.  Her  gradual  transfiguration  is 
exemplified  in  passages  already  quoted.  The  active  life 
leads  indirectly  by  a  knowledge  of  its  failures  and  sins 

*  There  is  a  passage  in  the  Convito  (Tr.  III.  c.  15)  in  which  Dante 
seems  clearly  to  make  the  distinction  asserted  above,  "And  therefore 
the  desire  of  man  is  limited  in  this  life  to  that  knowledge  (scienzia) 
which  may  here  be  had,  and  passes  not  save  by  error  that  point  which 
is  beyond  our  natural  understanding.  And  so  is  limited  and  meas 
ured  in  the  angelic  nature  the  amount  of  that  wisdom  which  the 
nature  of  each  is  capable  of  receiving."  Man  is,  according  to  Dante, 
superior  to  the  angels  in  this,  that  he  is  capable  both  of  reason  and 
contemplation,  while  they  are  confined  to  the  latter.  That  Beatrice's 
reproaches  refer  to  no  human  pargoletta,  the  context  shows,  where 
Dante  asks, 

"  But  wherefore  so  beyond  my  power  of  sight 
Soars  your  desirable  discourse  that  aye 
The  more  I  strive,  so  much  the  more  I  lose  it  ? 
That  thou  mayst  recognize,  she  said,  the  school 
Which  thou  hast  followed,  and  mayst  see  how  far 
Its  doctrine  follows  after  my  discourse, 
And  mayst  behold  your  path  from  the  divine 
Distant  as  far  as  separated  is 
From  earth  the  heaven  that  highest  hastens  on." 

Purgatorio,  XXXIII.  82-90. 

The  pargoletta  in  its  ordinary  sense  was  necessary  to  the  literal  and 
human  meaning,  but  it  is  shockingly  discordant  with  that  non-natural 
interpretation  which,  according  to  Dante's  repeated  statement,  lays 
open  the  true  and  divine  meaning. 


DANTE.  71 

(Inferno),  or  directly  by  a  righteous  employment  of  it 
(Purgatorio),  to  the  same  end.  The  use  of  the  sciences 
is  to  induce  in  us  the  ultimate  perfection,  that  of  spec 
ulating  upon  truth ;  the  use  of  the  highest  of  them, 
theology,  the  contemplation  of  God.*  To  this  they  all 
lead  up.  In  one  of  those  curious  chapters  of  the  Con 
vito^  where  he  points  out  the  analogy  between  the 
sciences  and  the  heavens,  Dante  tells  us  that  he  com 
pares  moral  philosophy  with  the  crystalline  heaven  or 
Primum  Mobile,  because  it  communicates  life  and  gives 
motion  to  all  the  others  below  it.  But  what  gives  mo 
tion  to  the  crystalline  heaven  (moral  philosophy)  itself1? 
"  The  most  fervent  appetite  which  it  has  in  each  of  its 
parts  to  be  conjoined  with  each  part  of  that  most  divine 
quiet  heaven  "  (Theology). J  Theology,  the  divine  sci 
ence,  corresponds  with  the  Empyrean,  "  because  of  its 
peace,  the  which,  through  the  most  excellent  certainty 
of  its  subject,  which  is  God,  suffers  no  strife  of  opinions 
or  sophistic  arguments."  §  No  one  of  the  heavens  is 
at  rest  but  this,  and  in  none  of  the  inferior  sciences 
can  we  find  repose,  though  he  likens  physics  to  the 
heaven  of  the  fixed  stars,  in  whose  name  is  a  suggestion 
of  the  certitude  to  be  arrived  at  in  things  demonstrable. 
Dante  had  this  comparison  in  mind,  it  may  be  inferred, 
when  he  said, 

"  Well  I  perceive  that  never  sated  is 
Our  intellect  unless  the  Truth  illume  it 
Beyond  which  nothing  true||  expands  itself. 
It  rests  therein  as  wild  beast  in  his  lair  ; 

*  "  So  then  they  that  are  in  the  flesh  cannot  please  God.  But  ye 
are  not  in  the  flesh,  but  in  the  Spirit,  if  so  be  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
dwell  in  you."  Romans  viii.  8,  9. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  14,  15. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  4    Compare  Paradiso,  I.  76,  77. 

§  "Vain  babblings  and  oppositions  of  science  falsely  so  called." 
1  Tim.  vi.  20. 

II  That  is,  no  partial  truth. 


72  DANTE. 

When  it  attains  it,  and  it  can  attain  it ; 
If  not,  then  each  desire  would  frustrate  be. 
Therefore  springs  up,  in  fashion  of  a  shoot, 
Doubt  at  the  foot  of  truth  ;  and  this  is  nature 
Which  to  the  top  from  height  to  height  impels  us."* 

The  contradiction,  as  it  seems  to  us,  resolves  itself  into 
an  essential,  easily  apprehensible,  if  mystical,  unity. 
Dante  at  first  gave  himself  to  the  study  of  the  sciences 
(after  he  had  lost  the  simple,  unquestioning  faith  of 
youth)  as  the  means  of  arriving  at  certainty.  From  the 
foot  of  every  truth  to  which  he  attained  sprang  this 
sucker  (rampollo)  of  doubt,  drawing  out  of  it  the  very 
sap  of  its  life.  In  this  way  was  Philosophy  truly  an 
adversary  of  his  soul,  and  the  reason  of  his  remorse  for 
fruitless  studies  which  drew  him  away  from  the  one  that 
alone  was  and  could  be  fruitful  is  obvious  enough.  But 
by  and  by  out  of  the  very  doubt  came  the  sweetness  t 
of  a  higher  and  truer  insight.  He  became  aware  that 
there  were  "  things  in  heaven  and  earth  undreamt  of  in 
your  philosophy,"  as  another  doubter  said,  who  had  just 
finished  his  studies,  but  could  not  find  his  way  out  of 
the  scepticism  they  engendered  as  Dante  did. 

"  Insane  is  he  who  hopeth  that  our  reason 
Can  traverse  the  illimitable  way 
Which  the  one  Substance  in  three  Persons  follows  ! 
Mortals,  remain  contented  at  the  Quia  ; 
For,  if  ye  had  been  able  to  see  all, 
No  need  there  were  [had  been]  for  Mary  to  bring  forth. 
And  ye  have  seen  desiring  without  fruit, 
Those  whose  desire  would  have  been  quieted 
Which  evermore  is  given  them  for  a  grief. 
I  speak  of  Aristotle  and  of  Plato 
And  many  others."  J 

*  Paradiso,  IV.  124-132. 

t  "  Out  of  the  eater  came  forth  meat,  and  out  of  the  strong  came 
forth  sweetness."— Judges  xiv.  14. 

t  Purgatorio,  III.  34-44.  The  allusions  in  this  passage  are  all  to 
sayings  of  Saint  Paul,  of  whom  Dante  was  plainly  a  loving  reader. 
"  Remain  contented  at  the  Quia,"  that  is,  be  satisfied  with  knowing 


DANTE.  73 

Whether  at  the  time  when  the  poems  of  the  Vita  Nuova 
•were  written  the  Lady  who  withdrew  him  for  a  while 
from  Beatrice  was  (which  we  doubt)  a  person  of  flesh 
and  blood  or  not,  she  was  no  longer  so  when  the  prose 
narrative  was  composed.  Any  one  familiar  with  Dante's 
double  meanings  will  hardly  question  that  by  putting 
her  at  a  window,  which  is  a  place  to  look  out  of,  he  in 
tended  to  imply  that  she  personified  Speculation,  a 
word  which  he  uses  with  a  wide  range  of  meaning,  some 
times  as  looking  for,  sometimes  as  seeing  (like  Shake 
speare's 

"  There  is  no  speculation  in  those  eyes  "), 

sometimes  as  intuition,  or  the  beholding  all  things  in 
God,  who  is  the  cause  of  all.  This  is  so  obvious,  and 
the  image  in  this  sense  so  familiar,  that  we  are  sur 
prised  it  should  have  been  hitherto  unremarked.  It  is 
plain  that,  even  when  the  Vita  Nuova  was  written,  the 

that  things  are,  without  inquiring  too  nicely  how  or  why.  "Being 
justified  by  faith  we  have  peace  with  God"  (Rom.  v.  1).  Infinita  via: 
"  0  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God  ! 
How  unsearchable  are  his  judgments,  and  his  ways  past  finding  out!  " 
(Rom.  xi.  33. )  Aristotle  and  Plato:  "  For  the  wrath  of  God  is  revealed 
from  heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and  unrighteousness  of  men  who 

hold  the  truth  in  unrighteousness For  the  invisible  things  of 

him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood 
by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead,  so 
that  they  are  without  excuse.  Because  that  when  they  knew  God,  they 
glorified  him  not  as  God,  neither  were  thankful,  but  became  vain  in 
their  imaginations,  and  their  foolish  heart  was  darkened"  (Rom.  i. 
18-21).  He  refers  to  the  Greeks.  The  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  by 
the  way,  would  naturally  be  Dante's  favorite.  As  Saint  Paul  made 
the  Law,  so  he  would  make  Science,  "  our  schoolmaster  to  bring  us 
unto  Christ,  that  we  might  be  justified  by  faith  "  (Gal.  iii.  24).  He 
puts  Aristotle  and  Plato  in  his  Inferno,  because  they  did  not "  adore  God 
duly  "  (Inferno,  IV.  38),  that  is,  they  "held  the  truth  in  unrighteous 
ness."  Yet  he  calls  Aristotle  "  the  master  and  guide  of  human  rea 
son  "  (Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  6),  and  Plato  "a  most  excellent  man" 
(Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  5).  Plato  and  Aristotle,  like  all  Dante's  figures, 
are  types.  We  must  disengage  our  thought  from  the  individual,  and 
fix  it  on  the  genus. 
4 


74  DANTE. 

Lady  was  already  Philosophy,  but  philosophy  applied  to 
a  lower  range  of  thought,  not  yet  ascended  from  flesh  to 
spirit.  The  Lady  who  seduced  him  was  the  science 
which  looks  for  truth  in  second  causes,  or  even  in  effects, 
instead  of  seeking  it,  where  alone  it  can  be  found,  in  the 
First  Cause ;  she  was  the  Philosophy  which  looks  for 
happiness  in  the  visible  world  (of  shadows),  and  not  in 
the  spiritual  (and  therefore  substantial)  world.  The 
guerdon  of  his  search  was  doubt.  But  Dante,  as  we 
have  seen,  made  his  very  doubts  help  him  upward 
toward  certainty  ;  each  became  a  round  in  the  ladder 
by  which  he  climbed  to  clearer  and  clearer  vision  till 
the  end.*  Philosophy  had  made  him  forget  Beatrice  ; 
it  was  Philosophy  who  was  to  bring  him  back  to  her 
again,  washed  clean  in  that  very  stream  of  forgetfulness 
that  had  made  an  impassable  barrier  between  them.t 
Dante  had  known  how  to  find  in  her  the  gift  of  Achilles's 
lance, 

*  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Dante  has  typified  the  same  thing 
when  he  describes  how  Reason  (Virgil)  first  carries  him  down  by 
clinging  to  the  fell  of  Satan,  and  then  in  the  same  way  upwards  again 
a  riveder  le  stelle.  Satan  is  the  symbol  of  materialism,  fixed  at  the 
point 

"  To  which  things  heavy  draw  from  every  side  "  ; 

as  God  is  Light  and  Warmth,  so  is  he  "  cold  obstruction  "  ;  the  very 
effort  which  he  makes  to  rise  by  the  motion  of  his  wings  begets  the 
chilly  blast  that  freezes  him  more  immovably  in  his  place  of  doom. 
The  danger  of  all  science  save  the  highest  (theology)  was  that  it  led 
to  materialism.  There  appears  to  have  been  a  great  deal  of  it  in 
Florence  in  the  time  of  Dante.  Its  followers  called  themselves  Epi 
cureans,  and  burn  in  living  tombs  (Inferno,  X.).  Dante  held  them  in 
special  horror.  "  Of  all  bestialities  that  is  the  most  foolish  and  vile 
and  hurtful  which  believes  there  is  no  other  life  after  this."  "  And  I 
so  believe,  so  affirm,  and  so  am  certain  that  we  pass  to  another  better 
life  after  this"  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  9).  It  is  a  fine  divination  of 
Carlyle  from  the  Non  han  speranza  di  morte  that  "  one  day  it  had 
risen  sternly  benign  in  the  scathed  heart  of  Dante  that  he,  wretched, 
never  resting,  worn  as  he  was,  would  [should]  full  surely  die." 
t  Purgatorio,  XXXI.  103. 


DANTE.  75 

"  Which  used  to  be  the  cause 
First  of  a  sad  and  then  a  gracious  boon."* 

There  is  another  possible,  and  even  probable,  theory 
which  would  reconcile  the  Beatrice  of  the  Purgatorio 
with  her  of  the  Vita  Nuova.  Suppose  that  even  in  the 
latter  she  signified  Theology,  or  at  least  some  influence 
that  turned  his  thoughts  to  God  ?  Pietro  di  Dante, 
commenting  the  pargoletta  passage  in  the  Purgatorio, 
says  expressly  that  the  poet  had  at  one  time  given 
himself  to  the  study  of  theology  and  deserted  it  for 
poesy  and  other  mundane  sciences.  This  must  refer  to 
a  period  beginning  before  1290.  Again  there  is  an  early 
tradition  that  Dante  in  his  youth  had  been  a  novice  in 
a  Franciscan  convent,  but  never  took  the  vows.  Buti 
affirms  this  expressly  in  his  comment  on  Inferno,  XVI. 
106  —  123.  It  is  perhaps  slightly  confirmed  by  what 
Dante  says  in  the  Convito,^  that  "  one  cannot  only 
turn  to  Religion  by  making  himself  like  in  habit  and 
life  to  St.  Benedict,  St.  Augustine,  St.  Francis,  and  St. 
Dominic,  but  likewise  one  may  turn  to  good  and  true 
religion  in  a  state  of  matrimony,  for  God  wills  no  relig 
ion  in  us  but  of  the  heart."  If  he  had  ever  thought 
of  taking  monastic  vows,  his  marriage  would  have  cut 
short  any  such  intention.  If  he  ever  wished  to  wed 
the  real  Beatrice  Portinari,  and  was  disappointed,  might 
not  this  be  the  time  when  his  thoughts  took  that  direc 
tion]  If  so,  the  impulse  came  indirectly,  at  least, 
from  her. 

We  have  admitted  that  Beatrice  Portinari  was  a  real 
creature, 

"  Col  sangue  suo  e  con  le  sue  giunture  " ; 

but  how  real  she  was,  and  whether  as  real  to  the 
poet's  memory  as  to  his  imagination,  may  fairly  be 

*  Inferno,  XXXI.  5,  6. 
t  Tr.  IV.  c.  28. 


76  DANTE. 

questioned.  She  shifts,  as  the  controlling  emotion  or 
the  poetic  fitness  of  the  moment  dictates,  from  a  woman 
loved  and  lost  to  a  gracious  exhalation  of  all  that  is 
fairest  in  womanhood  or  most  divine  in  the  soul  of  man, 
and  ere  the  eye  has  defined  the  new  image  it  has  become 
the  old  one  again,  or  another  mingled  of  both. 

"  Nor  one  nor  other  seemed  now  what  it  was, 
E'en  as  proceedeth  on  before  the  flame 
Upward  along  the  paper  a  brown  color, 
Which  is  not  black  as  yet,  and  the  white  dies."  * 

As  the  mystic  Griffin  in  the  eyes  of  Beatrice  (her  demon 
strations),  so  she  in  his  own, 

"  Now  with  the  one,  now  with  the  other  nature  ; 
Think,  Reader,  if  within  myself  I  marvelled 
When  I  beheld  the  thing  itself  stand  still 
And  in  its  image  it  transformed  itself."  t 

At  the  very  moment  when  she  had  undergone  her  most 
sublimated  allegorical  evaporation,  his  instinct  as  poet, 
which  never  failed  him,  realized  her  into  woman  again 
in  those  scenes  of  almost  unapproached  pathos  which 
make  the  climax  of  his  Purgatorio.  The  verses  tremble 
with  feeling  and  shine  with  tears.  J  Beatrice  recalls  her 

*  Inferno,  XXV.  64-67.  t  Purgatorio,  XXXI.  123-126. 

}  Spenser,  who  had,  like  Dante,  a  Platonizing  side,  and  who  was 
probably  the  first  English  poet  since  Chaucer  that  had  read  the  Corn- 
media,  has  imitated  the  pictorial  part  of  these  passages  in  the  "  Faerie 
Queene  "  (B.  VI.  c.  10).  He  has  turned  it  into  a  compliment,  and  a 
very  beautiful  one,  to  a  living  mistress.  It  is  instructive  to  compare 
the  effect  of  his  purely  sensuous  verses  with  that  of  Dante's,  which 
have  such  a  wonderful  reach  behind  them.  They  are  singularly  pleas 
ing,  but  they  do  not  stay  by  us  as  those  of  his  model  had  done  by 
him.  Spenser  was,  as  Milton  called  him,  a  "sage  and  serious  poet"; 
he  would  be  the  last  to  take  offence  if  we  draw  from  him  a  moral  not 
without  its  use  now  that  Priapus  is  trying  to  persuade  us  that  pose 
and  drapery  will  make  him  as  good  as  Urania.  Better  far  the  naked 
Hastiness  ;  the  more  covert  the  indecency,  the  more  it  shocks.  Poor 
old  god  of  gardens  !  Innocent  as  a  clownish  symbol,  he  is  simply  dis 
gusting  as  an  ideal  of  art.  In  the  last  century,  they  set  him  up  in 


DANTE.  77 

own  beauty  with  a  pride  as  natural  as  that  of  Fair  Annie 
in  the  old  ballad,  and  compares  herself  as  advanta 
geously  with  the  "  brown,  brown  bride  "  who  had  sup 
planted  her.  If  this  be  a  ghost,  we  do  not  need  be  told 
that  she  is  a  woman  still.*  We  must  remember,  how 
ever,  that  Beatrice  had  to  be  real  that  she  might  be  in 
teresting,  to  be  beautiful  that  her  goodness  might  be 
persuasive,  nay,  to  be  beautiful  at  any  rate,  because 
beauty  has  also  something  in  it  of  divine.  Dante  has 
told,  in  a  passage  already  quoted,  that  he  would  rather 
his  readers  should  find  his  doctrine  sweet  than  his  ver 
ses,  but  he  had  his  relentings  from  this  Stoicism. 

Germany  and  in  France  as  befitting  an  era  of  enlightenment,  the  light 
of  which  came  too  manifestly  from  the  wrong  quarter  to  be  long  en 
durable. 

*  This  touch  of  nature  recalls  another.  The  Italians  claim  humor 
for  Dante.  We  have  never  been  able  to  find  it,  unless  it  be  in  that 
passage  (Inferno,  XV.  119)  where  Brunetto  Latini  lingers  under 
the  burning  shower  to  recommend  his  Tesoro  to  his  former  pupil. 
There  is  a  comical  touch  of  nature  in  an  author's  solicitude  for  his 
little  work,  not,  as  in  Fielding's  case,  after  its,  but  his  own  damnation. 
We  are  not  sure,  but  we  fancy  we  catch  the  momentary  flicker  of  a 
smile  across  those  serious  eyes  of  Dante's.  There  is  something  like 
humor  in  the  opening  verses  of  the  XVI.  Paradiso,  where  Dante  tells  us 
how  even  in  heaven  he  could  not  help  glorying  in  being  gently  born,  — 
he  who  had  devoted  a  Canzone  and  a  book  of  the  Convito  to  proving 
that  nobility  consisted  wholly  in  virtue.  But  there  is,  after  all,  some 
thing  touchingly  natural  in  the  feeling.  Dante,  unjustly  robbed  of 
his  property,  and  with  it  of  the  independence  so  dear  to  him,  seeing 

"  Needy  nothings  trimmed  in  jollity, 
And  captive  Good  attending  Captain  111," 

would  naturally  fall  back  on  a  distinction  which  money  could  neither 
buy  nor  replace.  There  is  a  curious  passage  in  the  Convito  which  shows 
how  bitterly  he  resented  his  undeserved  poverty.  He  tells  us  that 
buried  treasure  commonly  revealed  itself  to  the  bad  rather  than  the 
good.  "  Verily  I  saw  the  place  on  the  flanks  of  a  mountain  in  Tus 
cany  called  Falterona,  where  the  basest  peasant  of  the  whole  country 
side  digging  found  there  more  than  a  bushel  of  pieces  of  the  finest 
silver,  which  perhaps  had  awaited  him  more  than  a  thousand  years." 
(Tr.  IV.  c.  11.)  One  can  seethe  grimness  of  his  face  as  he  looked  and 
thought,  "  how  salt  a  savor  hath  the  bread  of  others  !  " 


78  DANTE. 

" '  Canzone,  I  believe  those  will  be  rare 
Who  of  thine  inner  sense  can  master  all, 
Such  toil  it  costs  thy  native  tongue  to  learn  ; 
Wherefore,  if  ever  it  perchance  befall 
That  thou  in  presence  of  such  meu  shouldst  fare 
As  seem  not  skilled  thy  meaning  to  discern, 
I  pray  thee  then  thy  grief  to  comfort  turn, 
Saying  to  them,  0  thou  my  new  delight, 
'  Take  heed  at  least  how  fair  I  am  to  sight.' "  * 

We  believe  all  Dante's  other  Ladies  to  have  been  as 
purely  imaginary  as  the  Dulcinea  of  Don  Quixote,  useful 
only  as  motives,  but  a  real  Beatrice  is  as  essential  to  the 
human  sympathies  of  the  Divina  Commedia  as  her  glori 
fied  Idea  to  its  allegorical  teaching,  and  this  Dante  un 
derstood  perfectly  well.f  Take  her  out  of  the  poem, 
and  the  heart  of  it  goes  with  her ;  take  out  her  ideal, 
and  it  is  emptied  of  its  soul.  She  is  the  menstruum  in 
which  letter  and  spirit  dissolve  and  mingle  into  unity. 
Those  who  doubt  her  existence  must  find  Dante's  grace 
ful  sonnet  J  to  Guido  Cavalcante  as  provoking  as  San- 
cho's  story  of  his  having  seen  Dulcinea  winnowing  wheat 
was  to  his  master,  "  so  alien  is  it  from  all  that  which 
eminent  persons,  who  are  constituted  and  preserved  for 
other  exercises  and  entertainments,  do  and  ought  to 
do."§  But  we  should  always  remember  in  reading 
Dante  that  with  him  the  allegorical  interpretation  is 
the  true  one  (verace  sposizione),  and  that  he  represents 
himself  (and  that  at  a  time  when  he  was  known  to  the 
world  only  by  his  minor  poems)  as  having  made  right 
eousness  (rettitudine,  in  other  words,  moral  philosophy) 

*  L'Envoi  of  Canzone  XIV.  of  the  Canzoniere,  I.  of  the  Convito. 
Dante  cites  the  first  verse  of  this  Canzone,  Paradiso,  VIII.  37. 

t  How  Dante  himself  could  allegorize  even  historical  personages 
may  be  seen  in  a  curious  passage  of  the  Convito  (Tr.  IV.  c.  28),  where, 
commenting  on  a  passage  of  Lucan,  he  treats  Martia  and  Cato  as  mere 
figures  of  speech. 

$  II.  of  the  Canzoniere.     See  Fraticelli's  preface. 

§  Don  Quixote,  P.  II.  c.  VIII. 


DANTE.  79 

the  subject  of  his  verse.*  Love  with  him  seems  first 
to  have  meant  the  love  of  truth  and  the  search  after  it 
(speculazione},  and  afterwards  the  contemplation  of  it  in 
its  infinite  source  (speculazione  in  its  higher  and  mysti 
cal  sense).  This  is  the  divine  love  "  which  where  it 
shines  darkens  and  wellnigh  extinguishes  all  other 
loves."  f  Wisdom  is  the  object  of  it,  and  the  end  of 

*  De  vulgar!  Eloquio,  L.  II.  c.  2.  He  says  the  same  of  Giraud  de 
Borneil,  many  of  whose  poems  are  moral  and  even  devotional.  See, 
particularly,  "Al  honor  Dieu  torn  en  mon  chan  "  (Raynouard,  Lex 
Rom.  I.  388),  "Ben  es  dregz  pos  en  aital  port  "  (Ib.  393),  "  Jois  sia 
comensamens"  (Ib.  395),  and  "Be  veg  e  conosc  e  say"(Ib.  398). 
Another  of  his  poems  ("Ar  ai  grant  joy,"  Raynouard,  Choix,  III. 
304)  may  possibly  be  a  mystical  profession  of  love  for  the  Blessed 
Virgin,  for  whom,  as  Dante  tells  us,  Beatrice  had  a  special  devotion. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  14.    In  the  same  chapter  is  perhaps  an  expla 
nation  of  the  two  rather  difficult  verses  which  follow  that  in  which  the 
verace  speglio  is  spoken  of  (Paradise,  XXVI.  107,  108). 
"  Che  fa  di  s6  pareglie  1"  altre  cose 
E  nulla  face  lui  di  se  pareglio." 

Buti's  comment  is,  "  that  is,  makes  of  itself  a  receptacle  to  other 
things,  that  is,  to  all  things  that  exist,  which  are  all  seen  in  it."  Dante 
says  (abi  supra),  "The  descending  of  the  virtue  of  one  thing  into  another 
is  a  reducing  that  other  into  a  likeness  of  itself.  ....  Whence  we  see 
that  the  sun  sending  his  ray  down  hitherward  reduces  things  to  a  like 
ness  with  his  light  in  so  far  as  they  are  able  by  their  disposition  to 
receive  light  from  his  power.  So  I  say  that  God  reduces  this  love  to 
a  likeness  with  himself  as  much  as  it  is  possible  for  it  to  be  like  him." 
In  Provencal  pareilh  means  like,  and  Dante  may  have  formed  his  word 
from  it.  But  the  four  earliest  printed  texts  read  :  — 

"  Che  fa  di  se  pareglio  all'  altre  cose." 

Accordingly  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  next  verse  should  be 
corrected  thus :  — 

"  E  nulla  face  a  lui  di  se  pareglio." 

We  would  form  pareglio  from  parere  (a  something  in  which  things 
appear),  as  miraglio  from  mirare  (a  something  in  which  they  are 
seen).     God  contains  all  things  in  himself,  but  nothing  can  wholly 
contain  him.     The  blessed  behold  all  things  in  him  as  if  reflected,  but 
not  one  of  the  things  so  reflected  is  capable  of  his  image  in  its  com 
pleteness.    This  interpretation  is  confirmed  by  Paradiso,  XIX.  49-51. 
"  E  quinc.i  appar  eh'  ogni  minor  natura 
E  corto  recettacolo  a  quel  bene 
Che  non  ha  fine,  e  se  con  s6  ruisura." 


80  DANTE. 

wisdom  to  contemplate  God  the  true  mirror  (verace  speg- 
io,  speculum),  wherein  all  things  are  seen  as  they  truly 
are.  Nay,  she  herself  "  is  the  brightness  of  the  eternal 
light,  the  unspotted  mirror  of  the  majesty  of  God."* 

There  are  two  beautiful  passages  in  the  Convito,  which 
we  shall  quote,  both  because  they  have,  as  we  believe, 
a  close  application  to  Dante's  own  experience,  and  be 
cause  they  are  good  specimens  of  his  style  as  a  writer 
of  prose.  In  the  manly  simplicity  which  comes  of  an 
earnest  purpose,  and  in  the  eloquence  of  deep  conviction, 
this  is  as  far  beyond  that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries 
as  his  verse ;  nay,  more,  has  hardly  been  matched  by  any 
Italian  from  that  day  to  this.  Illustrating  the  position 
that  "the  highest  desire  of  everything  and  the  first 
given  us  by  nature  is  to  return  to  its  first  cause,"  he 
says  :  "  And  since  God  is  the  beginning  of  our  souls 
and  the  maker  of  them  like  unto  himself,  according  as 
was  written,  '  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image  and  like- 

*  "  Wisdom  of  Solomon,"  VII.  26,  quoted  by  Dante  (Convito,  Tr. 
III.  c.  15).  There  are  other  passages  in  the  "Wisdom  of  Solomon" 
besides  that  just  cited  which  we  may  well  believe  Dante  to  have  had  in 
his  mind  when  writing  the  Canzone  beginning,  — 

"  Ainor  che  nella  mente  mi  ragiona," 

and  the  commentary  upon  it,  and  some  to  which  his  experience  of  life 
must  have  given  an  intenser  meaning.  The  writer  of  that  book  also 
personifies  Wisdom  as  the  mistress  of  his  soul :  "  I  loved  her  and 
sought  her  out  from  my  youth,  I  desired  to  make  her  my  spouse,  and 
I  was  a  lover  of  her  beauty."  He  says  of  Wisdom  that  she  was  "pres 
ent  when  thou  (God)  madest  the  world,"  and  Dante  in  the  same  way 
identifies  her  with  the  divine  Logos,  citing  as  authority  the  "beginning 
of  the  Gospel  of  John."  He  tells  us,  "  I  perceived  that  I  could  not 
otherwise  obtain  her  except  God  gave  her  me,"  and  Dante  came  at  last 
to  the  same  conclusion.  Again,  "  For  the  very  true  beginning  of  her 
is  the  desire  of  discipline  ;  and  the  care  of  discipline  is  love.  And 
love  is  the  keeping  of  her  laws  ;  and  the  giving  heed  unto  her  lajvs  is 
the  assurance  of  incorruption."  But  who  can  doubt  that  he  read  with 
a  bitter  exultation,  and  applied  to  himself  passages  like  these  which 
follow  ?  "  When  the  righteous  fled  from  his  brother's  wrath,  she 
guided  him  in  right  paths  showed  him  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  gave 


DANTE.  81 

ness,'  this  soul  most  greatly  desires  to  return  to  him. 
And  as  a  pilgrim  who  goes  by  a  way  he  has  never 
travelled,  who  believes  every  house  he  sees  afar  off  to 
be  his  inn,  and  not  finding  it  to  be  so  directs  his  belief 
to  another,  and  so  from  house  to  house  till  he  come  to 
the  inn,  so  our  soul  forthwith  on  entering  upon  the  new 
and  never-travelled  road  of  this  life  directs  its  eyes  to 
the  goal  of  its  highest  good,  and  therefore  believes 
whatever  thing  it  sees  that  seems  to  have  in  it  any  good 
to  be  that.  And  because  its  first  knowledge  is  imperfect 
by  reason  of  not  being  experienced  nor  indoctrinated, 
small  goods  seem  to  it  great.  Wherefore  we  see  children 
desire  most  greatly  an  apple,  and  then  proceeding  fur 
ther  on  desire  a  bird,  and  then  further  yet  desire  fine 
raiment,  and  then  a  horse,  and  then  a  woman,  and  then 
riches  not  great,  and  then  greater  and  greater.  And 
this  befalls  because  in  none  of  these  things  it  finds  that 
which  it  goes  seeking,  and  thinks  to  find  it  further  on. 

him  knowledge  of  holy  things.  She  defended  him  from  his  enemies 
and  kept  him  safe  from  those  that  lay  in  wait,  ....  that  he  might 

know  that  godliness  is  stronger  than  all She  forsook  him  not, 

but  delivered  him  from  sin  ;  she  went  down  with  him  into  the  pit,  and 
left  him  not  in  bonds  till  she  brought  him  the  sceptre  of  the  kingdom, 
....  and  gave  him  perpetual  glory."  It  was,  perhaps,  from  this 
book  that  Dante  got  the  hint  of  making  his  punishments  and  penances 
typical  of  the  sins  that  earned  them.  "  Wherefore,  whereas  men  lived 
dissolutely  and  unrighteously,  thou  hast  tormented  them  with  their 
own  abominations."  Dante  was  intimate  with  the  Scriptures.  They 
do  even  a  scholar  no  harm.  M.  Victor  Le  Clerc,  in  his  "  Histoire  Lit- 
teraire  de  la  France  au  quatorzieme  siecle  "  (Tom.  II.  p.  72),  thinks  it 
"not  impossible "  that  a  passage  in  the  Lamentations  of  Jeremiah, 
paraphrased  by  Dante,  may  have  been  suggested  to  him  by  Rutebeuf 
or  Tristan,  rather  than  by  the  prophet  himself  !  Dante  would  hardly 
have  found  himself  so  much  at  home  in  the  company  of  jongleurs  as 
in  that  of  prophets.  Yet  he  was  familiar  with  French  and  Provensal 
poetry.  Beside  the  evidence  of  the  Vulgari  JSloquio,  there  are  fre 
quent  and  broad  traces  in  the  Commedia  of  the  Roman  de  la  Hose, 
slighter  ones  of  the  Chevalier  de  la  Charette,  Guillaume  d' Orange, 
and  a  direct  imitation  of  Bernard  de  Ventadour. 

4*  F 


82  DANTE. 

By  which  it  may  be  seen  that  one  desirable  stands 
before  another  in  the  eyes  of  our  soul  in  a  fashion  as 
it  were  pyramidal,  for  the  smallest  at  first  covers  the 
whole  of  them,  and  is  as  it  were  the  apex  of  the  highest 
desirable,  which  is  God,  as  it  were  the  base  of  all ;  so 
that  the  further  we  go  from  the  apex  toward  the  base 
the  desirables  appear  greater ;  and  this  is  the  reason 
why  human  desires  become  wider  one  after  the  other. 
Verily  this  way  is  lost  through  error  as  the  roads  of 
earth  are ;  for  as  from  one  city  to  another  there  is  of 
necessity  one  best  and  straightest  way,  and  one  that 
always  leads  farther  from  it,  that  is,  the  one  which  goes 
elsewhere,  and  many  others,  some  less  roundabout  and 
some  less  direct,  so  in  human  life  are  divers  roads  where 
of  one  is  the  truest  and  another  the  most  deceitful,  and 
certain  ones  less  deceitful,  and  certain  less  true.  And 
as  we  see  that  that  which  goes  most  directly  to  the  city 
fulfils  desire  and  gives  repose  after  weariness,  and  that 
which  goes  the  other  way  never  fulfils  it  and  never  can 
give  repose,  so  it  falls  out  in  our  life.  The  good  trav 
eller  arrives  at  the  goal  and  repose,  the  erroneous  never 
arrives  thither,  but  with  much  weariness  of  mind,  always 
with  greedy  eyes  looks  before  him."  *  If  we  may  apply 
Dante's  own  method  of  exposition  to  this  passage,  we 
find  him  telling  us  that  he  first  sought  felicity  in  knowl 
edge, 

"  That  apple  sweet  which  through  so  many  branches 
The  care  of  mortals  goeth  in  pursuit  of,"  f 

then  in  fame,  a  bird  that  flits  before  us  as  we  follow,  t 

*  Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  12. 

t  Purgatorio,  XXII.  115,  116. 

|  That  Dante  loved  fame  we  need  not  be  told.  He  several  times 
confesses  it,  especially  in  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  I.  17.  "  How 
glorious  she  [the  Vulgar  Tongue]  makes  her  intimates  [familiares, 
those  of  her  household],  we  ourselves  have  known,  who  in  the  sweet 
ness  of  this  glory  put  our  exile  behind  our  backs." 


DANTE.  83 

then  in  being  esteemed  of  men  ("  to  be  clothed  in 
purple,  ....  to  sit  next  to  Darius,  ....  and  be  called 
Darius  his  cousin  "),  then  in  power,*  then  in  the  riches 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  larger  and  larger  measure,  t  He, 
too,  had  found  that  there  was  but  one  straight  road, 
whether  to  the  Terrestrial  Paradise  or  the  Celestial 
City,  and  may  come  to  question  by  and  by  whether 
they  be  not  parallel  one  with  the  other,  or  even  parts 
of  the  same  road,  by  which  only  repose  is  to  be  reached 
at  last.  Then,  when  in  old  age  "the  noble  soul  returns 
to  God  as  to  that  port  whence  she  set  forth  on  the  sea 
of  this  life,  ....  just  as  to  him  who  comes  from  a  long 
journey,  before  he  enters  into  the  gate  of  his  city,  the 
citizens  thereof  go  forth  to  meet  him,  so  the  citizens  of 
the  eternal  life  go  to  meet  her,  and  do  so  because  of  her 
good  deeds  and  contemplations,  who,  having  already 
betaken  herself  to  God,  seems  to  see  those  whom  she 
believes  to  be  nigh  unto  God."  J  This  also  was  to  be 
the  experience  of  Dante,  for  who  can  doubt  that  the 
Paradiso  was  something  very  unlike  a  poetical  exercise 
to  him  who  appeals  to  the  visions  even  of  sleep  as  proof 
of  the  soul's  immortality  1 

When  did  his  soul  catch  a  glimpse  of  that  certainty 
in  which  "  the  mind  that  museth  upon  many  things  " 


*  Dante  several  times  uses  the  sitting  a  horse  as  an  image  of  rule. 
See  especially  Purgatorio,  VI.  99,  and  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  11. 

t  "0  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  the  knowl 
edge  of  God !  "  Dante  quotes  this  in  speaking  of  the  influence  of  the 
stars,  which,  interpreting  it  presently  "by  the  theological  way,"  he 
compares  to  that  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  "And  thy  counsel  who  hath 
known,  except  thou  give  wisdom  and  send  thy  Holy  Spirit  from 
above?"  (Wisdom  of  Solomon,  ix.  17.)  The  last  words  of  the 
Convito  are,  "her  [Philosophy]  whose  proper  dwelling  is  in  the 
depths  of  the  Divine  mind."  The  ordinary  reading  is  ragione 
(reason),  but  it  seems  to  us  an  obvious  blunder  for  magione  (man 
sion,  dwelling). 

J  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  28. 


84        '  DANTE. 

can  find  assured  rest  1  We  have  already  said  that  we 
believe  Dante's  political  opinions  to  have  taken  their 
final  shape  and  the  De  Monarchid  to  have  been  written 
before  1300.*  That  the  revision  of  the  Vita  Nuova  was 
completed  in  that  year  seems  probable  from  the  last 
sonnet  but  one,  which  is  addressed  to  pilgrims  on  their 
way  to  the  Santa  Veronica  at  Rome.f  In  this  sonnet 
he  still  laments  Beatrice  as  dead ;  he  would  make  the 
pilgrims  share  his  grief.  It  is  the  very  folly  of  despair 
ing  sorrow,  that  calls  on  the  first  comer,  stranger 
though  he  be,  for  a  sympathy  which  none  can  fully 
give,  and  he  least  of  all.  But  in  the  next  sonnet,  the 
last  in  the  book,  there  is  a  surprising  change  of  tone. 
The  transfiguration  of  Beatrice  has  begun,  and  we  see 
completing  itself  that  natural  gradation  of  grief  which 
will  erelong  bring  the  mourner  to  call  on  the  departed 
saint  to  console  him  for  her  own  loss.  The  sonnet  is 
remarkable  in  more  senses  than  one,  first  for  its  psy 
chological  truth,  and  then  still  more  for  the  light  it 
throws  on  Dante's  inward  history  as  poet  and  thinker. 

*  He  refers  to  a  change  in  his  own  opinions  (Lib.  II.  §  1),  where  he 
says,  "When  I  knew  the  nations  to  have  murmured  against  the  pre 
eminence  of  the  Roman  people,  and  saw  the  people  imagining  vain 
tilings  as  I  myself  was  wont."  He  was  a  Guelph  by  inheritance,  he 
became  a  Ghibelline  by  conviction. 

t  It  should  seem  from  Dante's  words  ("at  the  time  when  much 
people  went  to  see  the  blessed  image,"  and  "ye  seem  to  come  from  a 
far-off  people")  that  this  was  some  extraordinary  occasion,  and  what 
so  likely  as  the  jubilee  of  1300  ?  (Compare  Paradiso,  XXXI.  103  - 
108.)  Dante's  comparisons  are  so  constantly  drawn  from  actual  eye 
sight,  that  his  allusion  (Inferno,  XIII.  28-33)  to  a  device  of  Boni 
face  VIII.  for  passing  the  crowds  quietly  across  the  bridge  of  Saint 
Angelo,  renders  it  not  unlikely  that  he  was  in  Rome  at  that  time,  and 
perhaps  conceived  his  poem  there  as  Giovanni  Villani  his  chronicle. 
That  Rome  would  deeply  stir  his  mind  and  heart  is  beyond  question. 
"  And  certes  I  am  of  a  firm  opinion  that  the  stones  that  stand  in  her 
walls  are  worthy  of  reverence,  and  the  soil  where  she  sits  worthy 
beyond  what  is  preached  and  admitted  of  men."  (Convito,  Tr.  IV. 
c.  5.) 


DANTE.  85 

Hitherto  he  had  celebrated  beauty  and  goodness  in  the 
creature ;  henceforth  he  was  to  celebrate  them  in  the 
Creator  whose  praise  they  were.*  We  give  an  extem 
pore  translation  of  this  sonnet,  in  which  the  meaning  is 
preserved  so  far  as  is  possible  where  the  grace  is  left 
out.  We  remember  with  some  compunction  as  we  do 
it,  that  Dante  has  said,  "  know  every  one  that  nothing 
harmonized  by  a  musical  band  can  be  transmuted  from 
its  own  speech  to  another  without  breaking  all  its 
sweetness  and  harmony,"  t  and  Cervantes  was  of  the 
same  mind  :  J  — 

"  Beyond  the  sphere  that  hath  the  widest  gyre 
Passeth  the  sigh  §  that  leaves  my  heart  below  ; 
A  new  intelligence  doth  love  bestow 
On  it  with  tears  that  ever  draws  it  higher ; 
When  it  wins  thither  where  is  its  desire, 
A  Lady  it  beholds  who  honor  so 
And  light  receives,  that,  through  her  splendid  glow, 

*  Beatrice,  loda  di  Dio  vera,  Inferno,  II.  103.  "Surely  vain  are 
all  men  by  nature  who  are  ignorant  of  God,  and  could  not  out  of  the 
good  things  that  are  seen  know  him  that  is,  neither  by  considering 

the  works  did  they  acknowledge  the  work-master For,  being 

conversant  in  his  works,  they  search  diligently  and  believe  their  sight, 
because  the  things  are  beautiful  that  are  seen.  Howbeit,  neither  are 
they  to  be  pardoned."  (Wisdom  of  Solomon,  XIII.  1,  7,  8.)  Non 
adorar  debitamente  Dio.  "For  the  invisible  things  of  him  from  the 
creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things 
that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  godhead  ;  so  that  they  are 
without  excuse."  It  was  these  "invisible  things"  whereof  Dante 
was  beginning  to  get  a  glimpse. 

+  Convito,  Tr.  I  c.  7. 

J  "And  here  we  would  have  forgiven  Mr.  Captain  if  he  had  not 
betrayed  him  (traido,  traduttore  traditore)  to  Spain  and  made  him  a 
Castilian,  for  he  took  away  much  of  his  native  worth,  and  so  will  all 
those  do  who  shall  undertake  to  turn  a  poem  into  another  tongue  ; 
for  with  all  the  care  they  take  and  ability  they  show,  they  will  never 
reach  the  height  of  its  original  conception,"  says  the  Curate,  speak 
ing  of  a  translation  of  Ariosto.  (Don  Quixote,  P.  I.  c.  6.) 

§  In  his  own  comment  Dante  says,  "  I  tell  whither  goes  my  thought, 
calling  it  by  the  name  of  one  of  its  effects. " 


86  DANTE. 

The  pilgrim  spirit  *  sees  her  as  in  fire  ; 
It  sees  her  such,  that,  telling  me  again 
I  understand  it  not,  it  speaks  so  low 
Unto  the  mourning  heart  that  bids  it  tell ; 
Its  speech  is  of  that  noble  One  I  know, 
For  '  Beatrice '  I  often  hear  full  plain, 
So  that,  dear  ladies,  I  conceive  it  well." 

No  one  can  read  this  in  its  connection  with  what  goes 
before  and  what  follows  without  feeling  that  a  new  con 
ception  of  Beatrice  had  dawned  upon  the  mind  of  Dante, 
dim  as  yet,  or  purposely  made  to  seem  so,  and  yet  the 
authentic  forerunner  of  the  fulness  of  her  rising  as  the 
light  of  his  day  and  the  guide  of  his  feet,  the  divine 
wisdom  whose  glory  pales  all  meaner  stars.  The  con 
ception  of  a  poem  in  which  Dante's  creed  in  politics  and 
morals  should  be  picturesquely  and  attractively  embodied, 
and  of  the  high  place  which  Beatrice  should  take  in  it, 
had  begun  vaguely  to  shape  itself  in  his  thought.  As 
he  brooded  over  it,  of  a  sudden  it  denned  itself  clearly. 
"  Soon  after  this  sonnet  there  appeared  to  me  a  marvel 
lous  vision  t  wherein  I  saw  things  which  made  me  pro 
pose  not  to  say  more  of  that  blessed  one  until  I  could 
treat  of  her  more  worthily.  And  to  arrive  at  that  I 
study  all  I  can,  as  she  verily  knows.  So  that,  if  it  be 
the  pleasure  of  Him  through  whom  all  things  live,  that 
my  life  hold  out  yet  a  few  years,  I  hope  to  say  that  of 
her  which  was  never  yet  said  of  any  (woman).  And 
then  may  it  please  Him  who  is  the  Lord  of  Courtesy 
that  my  soul  may  go  to  see  the  glory  of  her  Lady,  that 
is,  of  that  blessed  Beatrice  who  gloriously  beholds  the 
face  of  Him  qui  est  per  omnia  scecula  benedictus."  It  was 
the  method  of  presentation  that  became  clear  to  Dante 

*  Spirito  means  in  Italian  both  breath  (spirto  ed  acquafessl,  Purga- 
torio,  XXX.  98)  and  spirit. 

+  By  visione  Dante  means  something  seen  waking  by  the  inner  eye. 
He  believed  also  that  dreams  were  sometimes  divinely  inspired,  and 
argues  from  such  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  9.) 


DANTE.  87 

at  this  time,  —  the  plan  of  the  great  poem  for  whose 
completion  the  experience  of  earth  and  the  inspiration  of 
heaven  were  to  combine,  and  which  was  to  make  him 
lean  for  many  years.*  The  doctrinal  scope  of  it  was 
already  determined.  Man,  he  tells  us,  is  the  only  crea 
ture  who  partakes  at  once  of  the  corruptible  and  in 
corruptible  nature  ;  "  and  since  every  nature  is  ordained 
to  some  ultimate  end,  it  follows  that  the  end  of  man  is 
double.  And  as  among  all  beings  he  alone  partakes  of 
the  corruptible  and  incorruptible,  so  alone  among  all 
beings  he  is  ordained  to  a  double  end,  whereof  the  one 
is  his  end  as  corruptible,  the  other  as  incorruptible. 
That  unspeakable  Providence  therefore  foreordered  two 
ends  to  be  pursued  by  man,  to  wit,  beatitude  in  this 
life,  which  consists  in  the  operation  of  our  own  virtue, 
and  is  figured  by  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  and  the  beati 
tude  of  life  eternal,  which  consists  in  a  fruition  of  the 
divine  countenance,  whereto  our  own  virtue  cannot 
ascend  unless  aided  by  divine  light,  which  is  understood 
by  the  Celestial  Paradise."  The  one  we  attain  by 
practice  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  virtues  as  they 
are  taught  by  philosophers,  the  other  by  spiritual  teach 
ings  transcending  human  reason,  and  the  practice  of  the 
theological  virtues  of  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity.  For 
one,  Reason  suffices  ("  which  was  wholly  made  known 
to  us  by  philosophers  "),  for  the  other  we  need  the  light 
of  supernatural  truth  revealed  by  the  Holy  Spirit  and 
"needful  for  us."  Men  led  astray  by  cupidity  turn 
their  backs  on  both,  and  in  their  bestiality  need  bit  and 
rein  to  keep  them  in  the  way.  "  Wherefore  to  man 
was  a  double  guidance  needful  according  to  the  double 
end,"  the  Supreme  Pontiff  in  spiritual,  the  Emperor  in 
temporal  things,  f 

*  Paradise,  XXV.  1-3. 

t  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  III.  §  ult.    See  the  whole  passage  inJVtiss  Ros- 


88  DANTE. 

But  how  to  put  this  theory  of  his  into  a  poetic  form 
which  might  charm  while  it  was  teaching  1  He  would 
typify  Reason  in  Virgil  (who  would  serve  also  as  a 
symbol  of  political  wisdom  as  having  celebrated  the 
founding  of  the  Empire),  and  the  grace  of  God  in  that 
Beatrice  whom  he  had  already  supernaturalized  into 
something  which  passeth  all  understanding.  In  choos 
ing  Virgil  he  was  sure  of  that  interest  and  sympathy 
which  his  instinct  led  him  to  seek  in  the  predisposition 
of  his  readers,  for  the  popular  imagination  of  the  Middle 
Ages  had  busied  itself  particularly  with  the  Mantuan 
poet.  The  Church  had  given  him  a  quasi-orthodoxy  by 
interpreting  his  jam  redit  et  virgo  as  a  prophecy  of  the 
birth  of  Christ.  At  Naples  he  had  become  a  kind  of 
patron  saint,  and  his  bones  were  exhibited  as  relics. 
Dante  himself  may  have  heard  at  Mantua  the  hymn 
sung  on  the  anniversary  of  St.  Paul,  in  which  the  apostle 
to  the  Gentiles  is  represented  as  weeping  at  the  tomb 
of  the  greatest  of  poets.  Above  all,  Virgil  had  described 
the  descent  of  ^Eneas  to  the  under-world.  Dante's 
choice  of  a  guide  was  therefore,  in  a  certain  degree,  made 
for  him.  But  the  mere  Reason  *  of  man  without  the 

setti,  p.  39.  It  is  noticeable  that  Dante  says  that  the  Pope  is  to  lead 
(by  example),  the  Emperor  to  direct  (by  the  enforcing  of  justice).  The 
duty,  we  are  to  observe,  was  a  double  but  not  a  divided  one.  To  ex 
emplify  this  unity  was  indeed  one  object  of  the  Commedia. 

*  "  What  Reason  seeth  here 
Myself  [Virgil]  can  tell  thee  ;  beyond  that  await 
For  Beatrice,  since  'tis  a  work  of  Faith."  —  Purgatorio,  XVIII.  46-48. 

Beatrice  here  evidently  impersonates  Theology.  It  would  be  inter 
esting  to  know  what  was  the  precise  date  of  Dante's  theological  studies. 
The  earlier  commentators  all  make  him  go  to  Paris,  the  great  foun 
tain  of  such  learning,  after  his  banishment.  Boccaccio  indeed  says 
that  he  did  not  return  to  Italy  till  1311.  Wegele  (Dante's  "Leben  und 
Werke,"  p.  85)  puts  the  date  of  his  journey  between  1292  and  1297. 
Ozanam,  with  a  pathos  comically  touching  to  the  academic  soul,  laments 
that  poverty  compelled  him  to  leave  the  university  without  the  degree 
he  had  so  justly  earned.  He  consoles  himself  with  the  thought  that 


DANTE.  89 

illumination  of  divine  Grace  cannot  be  trusted,  and 
accordingly  the  intervention  of  Beatrice  was  needed,  — 
of  Beatrice,  as  Miss  Rossetti  admirably  well  expresses 
it,  "  already  transfigured,  potent  not  only  now  to  charm 
and  soothe,  potent  to  rule ;  to  the  Intellect  a  light,  to 
the  Affections  a  compass  and  a  balance,  a  sceptre  over 
the  Will." 

The  wood  obscure  in  which  Dante  finds  himself  is  the 
world.*  The  three  beasts  who  dispute  his  way  are  the 
sins  that  most  easily  beset  us,  Pride,  the  Lusts  of  the 
Flesh,  and  Greed.  We  are  surprised  that  Miss  Rossetti 
should  so  localize  and  confine  Dante's  meaning  as  to 
explain  them  by  Florence,  France,  and  Rome.  Had  he 
written  in  so  narrow  a  sense  as  this,  it  would  indeed  be 
hard  to  account  for  the  persistent  power  of  his  poem. 
But  it  was  no  political  pamphlet  that  Dante  was  writing. 
Subjectum  est  Homo,  and  it  only  takes  the  form  of  a 
diary  by  Dante  Alighieri  because  of  the  intense  realism 
of  his  imagination,  a  realism  as  striking  in  the  Paradiso 
as  the  Inferno,  though  it  takes  a  different  shape.  Every 
thing,  the  most  supersensual,  presented  itself  to  his 
mind,  not  as  abstract  idea,  but  as  visible  type.  As 
men  could  once  embody  a  quality  of  good  in  a  saint  and 
see  it,  as  they  even  now  in  moments  of  heightened  fan 
tasy  or  enthusiasm  can  personify  their  country  and 

"  there  remained  to  him  an  incontestable  erudition  and  the  love  of 
serious  studies."  (Dante  et  la  philosophic  catholique,  p.  112.)  It  is  sad 
that  we  cannot  write  Dantes  Allghierius,  S.  T.  D.I  Dante  seems  to 
imply  that  he  began  to  devote  himself  to  Philosophy  and  Theology 
shortly  after  Beatrice's  death.  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  13.)  He  compares 
himself  to  one  who,  "  seeking  silver,  should,  without  meaning  it,  find 
gold,  which  an  occult  cause  presents  to  him,  not  perhaps  without  the 
divine  command."  Here  again  apparently  is  an  allusion  to  his  having 
found  Wisdom  while  he  sought  Learning.  He  had  thought  to  find 
God  in  the  beaiity  of  his  works,  he  learned  to  seek  all  things  in  God. 

*  In  a  more  general  view,  matter,  the  domain  of  the  senses,  no 
doubt  with  a  recollection  of  Aristotle's  ti\rj. 


90  DANTE. 

speak  of  England,  France,  or  America,  as  if  they  were 
real  beings,  so  did  Dante  habitually.*  He  saw  all  his 
thoughts  as  distinctly  as  the  hypochondriac  sees  his 
black  dog,  and,  as  in  that,  their  form  and  color  were 
but  the  outward  form  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  con 
dition.  Whatever  subsidiary  interpretations  the  poem 
is  capable  of,  its  great  and  primary  value  is  as  the  auto 
biography  of  a  human  soul,  of  yours  and  mine,  it  may 
be,  as  well  as  Dante's.  In  that  lie  its  profound  mean 
ing'  and  its  permanent  force.  That  an  exile,  a  proud 
man  forced  to  be  dependent,  should  have  found  some 
consolation  in  brooding  over  the  justice  of  God,  weighed 
in  such  different  scales  from  those  of  man,  in  contrast 
ing  the  outward  prosperity  of  the  sinner  with  the  awful 
spiritual  ruin  within,  is  not  wonderful,  nay,  we  can  con 
ceive  of  his  sometimes  finding  the  wrath  of  God  sweeter 
than  his  mercy.  But  it  is  wonderful  that  out  of  the 
very  wreck  of  his  own  life  he  should  have  built  this 
three-arched  bridge,  still  firm  against  the  wash  and 
wear  of  ages,  stretching  from  the  Pit  to  the  Empyrean, 
by  which  men  may  pass  from  a  doubt  of  God's  provi 
dence  to  a  certainty  of  his  long-suffering  and  loving- 
kindness. 

"  The  Infinite  Goodness  hath  such  ample  arms 
That  it  receives  whatever  turns  to  it."  + 

A  tear  is  enough  to  secure  the  saving  clasp  of  them.J 
It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  Dante's  Other 
World  is  not  in  its  first  conception  a  place  of  departed 
spirits.  It  is  the  Spiritual  World,  whereof  we  become 
denizens  by  birth  and  citizens  by  adoption.  It  is  true 
that  for  artistic  purposes  he  makes  it  conform  so  far  as 

*  As  we  have  seen,  even  a  sigh  becomes  He.  This  makes  one  of  the 
difficulties  of  translating  his  minor  poems.  The  modern  mind  is 
incapable  of  this  subtlety. 

+  Purgatorio,  III.  122,  123. 

J  Purgatorio,  V.  107. 


DANTE.  91 

possible  with  vulgar  preconceptions,  but  he  himself  has 
told  us  again  and  again  what  his  real  meaning  was. 
Virgil  tells  Dante,  — 

"  Thou  shalt  behold  the  people  dolorous 
Who  have  foregone  the  good  of  intellect."  * 

The  "good  of  the  intellect,"  Dante  tells  us  after  Aris 
totle,  is  Truth. t  He  says  that  Virgil  has  led  him 
"through  the  deep  night  of  the  truly  dead."%  Who 
are  they  ]  Dante  had  in  mind  the  saying  of  the  Apostle, 
"  to  be  carnally  minded  is  death."  He  says  :  "  In  man 
to  live  is  to  use  reason.  Then  if  living  is  the  being 
of  man,  to  depart  from  that  use  is  to  depart  from  being, 
and  so  to  be  dead.  And  doth  not  he  depart  from  the 
use  of  reason  who  doth  not  reason  out  the  object  of  his 
life  1"  "I  say  that  so  vile  a  person  is  dead,  seeming  to 
be  alive.  For  we  must  know  that  the  wicked  man  may 
be  called  truly  dead."  "  He  is  dead  who  follows  not  the 
teacher.  And  of  such  a  one  some  might  say,  how  is  he 
dead  and  yet  goes  about  ]  I  answer  that  the  man  is 
dead  and  the  beast  remains."  §  Accordingly  he  has  put 
living  persons  in  the  Inferno,  like  Frate  Alberigo  and 
Branca  d'  Oria,  of  whom  he  says  with  bitter  sarcasm 
that  he  still  "  eats  and  drinks  and  puts  on  clothes,"  as 
if  that  were  his  highest  ideal  of  the  true  ends  of  life.  || 
There  is  a  passage  iu  the  first  canto  of  the  Inferno  H 
which  has  been  variously  interpreted  :  — 

"  The  ancient  spirits  disconsolate 
Who  cry  out  each  one  for  the  second  death." 

Miss  Rossetti  cites  it  as  an  example  of  what  she  felici 
tously  calls  "  an  ambiguity,  not  hazy,  but  prismatic,  and 

*  Inferno,  III.  17,  18  (hanno perduto  =  thrown  away). 

f  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  14. 

t  Purgatorio,  XXIII.  121,  122. 

§  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  7. 

||  Inferno,  XXXIII.  118,  et  seq. 

IT  Inferno,  I.  116,  117. 


92  DANTE. 

therefore  not  really  perplexing."  She  gives  us  accord 
ingly  our  choice  of  two  interpretations,  "  '  each  cries 
out  on  account  of  the  second  death  which  he  is  suffer 
ing,'  and  'each  cries  out  for  death  to  come  a  second 
time  and  ease  him  of  his  sufferings.' "  *  Buti  says  : 
"  Here  one  doubts  what  the  author  meant  by  the  second 
death,  and  as  for  me  I  think  he  meant  the  last  damna 
tion,  which  shall  be  at  the  day  of  judgment,  because 
they  would  wish  through  envy  that  it  had  already  come, 
that  they  might  have  more  companions,  since  the  first 
death  is  the  first  damnation,  when  the  soul  parted  from 
the  body  is  condemned  to  the  pains  of  hell  for  its  sins. 
The  second  is  when,  resuscitated  at  the  judgment  day, 
they  shall  be  finally  condemned,  soul  and  body  together. 
....  It  may  otherwise  be  understood  as  annihilation." 
Imola  says,  "  Each  would  wish  to  die  again,  if  he  could, 
to  put  an  end  to  his  pain.  Do  not  hold  with  some  who 
think  that  Dante  calls  the  second  death  the  day  of 
judgment,"and  then  quotes  a  passage  from  St.  Augustine 
which  favors  that  view.  Pietro  di  Dante  gives  us  four 
interpretations  among  which  to  choose,  the  first  being 
that,  "  allegorically,  depraved  and  vicious  men  are  in  a 
certain  sense  dead  in  reputation,  and  this  is  the  first 
death ;  the  second  is  that  of  the  body."  This  we  believe 
to  be  the  true  meaning.  Dante  himself,  in  a  letter  to 
the  "  most  rascally  (scelestissimis)  dwellers  in  Florence," 
gives  us  the  key  :  "  but  you,  transgressors  of  the  laws 
of  God  and  man,  whom  the  direful  maw  of  cupidity  hath 
enticed  not  unwilling  to  every  crime,  does  not  the  ter 
ror  of  the  second  death  torment  you  ?  "  Their  first  death 
was  in  their  sins,  the  second  is  what  they  may  expect 
from  the  just  vengeance  of  the  Emperor  Henry  VII. 
The  world  Dante  leads  us  through  is  that  of  his  own 

*  Mr.  Longfellow's  for,  like  the  Italian  per,  gives  us  the  same  privi 
lege  of  election.     We  "  freeze  for  cold,"  we  "  hunger  for  food." 


DANTE.  93 

thought,  and  it  need  not  surprise  us  therefore  if  we 
meet  in  it  purely  imaginary  beings  like  Tristrem  *  and 
Renoard  of  the  club.t  His  personality  is  so  strongly 
marked  that  it  is  nothing  more  than  natural  that  his 
poem  should  be  interpreted  as  if  only  he  and  his  opin 
ions,  prejudices,  or  passions  were  concerned.  He  would 
not  have  been  the  great  poet  he  was  if  he  had  not  felt 
intensely  and  humanly,  but  he  could  never  have  won 
the  cosmopolitan  place  he  holds  had  he  not  known  how 
to  generalize  his  special  experience  into  something  me 
diatorial  for  all  of  us.  Pietro  di  Dante  in  his  comment 
on  the  thirty-first  canto  of  the  Purgatorio  says  that 
"unless  you  understand  him  and  his  figures  allegori- 
cally,  you  will  be  deceived  by  the  bark,"  and  adds  that 
our  author  made  his  pilgrimage  as  the  representative  of 
the  rest  (in  persona  ceterorum).^  To  give  his  vision 
reality,  he  has  adapted  it  to  the  vulgar  mythology,  but 
to  understand  it  as  the  author  meant,  it  must  be  taken 
in  the  larger  sense.  To  confine  it  to  Florence  or  to 
Italy  is  to  banish  it  from  the  sympathies  of  mankind. 
It  was  not  from  the  campanile  of  the  Badia  that  Dante 
got  his  views  of  life  and  man. 

*  Inferno,  V.  67. 

•f  Paradiso,  XVIII.  46.  Renoard  is  one  of  the  heroes  (a  rudely 
humorous  one)  in  "  La  Bataille  d'Alischans,"  an  episodeiof  the  meas 
ureless  "  Guillaume  d'Orange."  It  was  from  the  graves  of  those  sup 
posed  to  have  been  killed  in  this  battle  that  Dante  draws  a  comparison, 
Inferno,  IX.  Boccaccio's  comment  on  this  passage  might  have  been 
read  to  advantage  by  the  French  editors  of  "Alischaus." 

£  We  cite  this  comment  under  its  received  name,  though  it  is  uncer 
tain  if  Pietro  was  the  author  of  it.  Indeed,  we  strongly  doubt  it. 
It  is  at  least  one  of  the  earliest,  for  it  appears,  by  the  comment  on 
Paradiso,  XXVI.,  that  the  greater  part  of  it  was  written  before  1341. 
It  is  remarkable  for  the  strictness  with  which  it  holds  to  the  spiritual 
interpretation  of  the  poem,  and  deserves  much  more  to  be  called 
Ottimo,  than  the  comment  which  goes  by  that  name.  Its  publication 
is  due  to  the  zeal  and  liberality  of  the  late  Lord  Vernon,  to  whom 
students  of  Dante  are  also  indebted  for  the  parallel-text  reprint  of  the 
four  earliest  editions  of  the  Conmiedia. 


94  DANTE. 

The  relation  of  Dante  to  literature  is  monumental, 
and  marks  the  era  at  which  the  modern  begins.  He  is 
not  only  the  first  great  poet,  but  the  first  great  prose 
writer  who  used  a  language  not  yet  subdued  to  litera 
ture,  who  used  it  moreover  for  scientific  and  metaphys 
ical  discussion,  thus  giving  an  incalculable  impulse  to 
the  culture  of  his  countrymen  by  making  the  laity  free 
of  what  had  hitherto  been  the  exclusive  guild  of  clerks.* 
Whatever  poetry  had  preceded  him,  whether  in  the 
Romance  or  Teutonic  tongues,  is  interesting  mainly  for 
its  simplicity  without  forethought,  or,  as  in  the  Nibe- 
lungen,  for  a  kind  of  savage  grandeur  that  rouses  the 
sympathy  of  whatever  of  the  natural  man  is  dormant 
in  us.  But  it  shows  no  trace  of  the  creative  faculty 
either  in  unity  of  purpose  or  style,  the  proper  charac 
teristics  of  literature.  If  it  have  the  charm  of  wanting 
artifice,  it  has  not  the  higher  charm  of  art.  We  are  in 
the  realm  of  chaos  and  chance,  nebular,  with  phosphor 
escent  gleams  here  and  there,  star-stuff,  but  uncondensed 
in  stars.  The  Nibelungen  is  not  without  far-reaching 
hints  and  forebodings  of  something  finer  than  we  find 
in  it,  but  they  are  a  glamour  from  the  vague  dark 
ness  which  encircles  it,  like  the  whisper  of  the  sea 
upon  an  unknown  shore  at  night,  powerful  only  over 
the  more  vulgar  side  of  the  imagination,  and  leaving  no 
thought,  scarce  even  any  image  (at  least  of  beauty)  be 
hind  them.  Such  poems  are  the  amours,  not  the  last 
ing  friendships  and  possessions  of  the  mind.  They 
thrill  and  cannot  satisfy. 

*  See  Wegele,  vbi  supra,  p.  174,  et  seq.  The  best  analysis  of  Dante's 
opinions  we  have  ever  met  with  is  Emil  Ruth's  "  Studien  iiber  Dante 
Alighieri,"  Tubingen,  1853.  Unhappily  it  wants  an  index,  and  accord 
ingly  loses  a  great  part  of  its  usefulness  for  those  not  already  familiar 
with  the  subject.  Nor  are  its  references  sufficiently  exact.  We  always 
respect  Dr.  Ruth's  opinions,  if  we  do  not  wholly  accept  them,  for 
they  are  all  the  results  of  original  and  assiduous  study. 


DANTE.  95 

But  Dante  is  not  merely  the  founder  of  modern  liter 
ature.  He  would  have  been  that  if  he  had  never  writ 
ten  anything  more  than  his  Canzoni,  which  for  elegance, 
variety  of  rhythm,  and  fervor  of  sentiment  were  some 
thing  altogether  new.  They  are  of  a  higher  mood  than 
any  other  poems  of  the  same  style  in  their  own  lan 
guage,  or  indeed  in  any  other.  In  beauty  of  phrase  and 
subtlety  of  analogy  they  remind  one  of  some  of  the 
Greek  tragic  choruses.  We  are  constantly  moved  in 
them  by  a  nobleness  of  tone,  whose  absence  in  many 
admired  lyrics  of  the  kind  is  poorly  supplied  by  con 
ceits.  So  perfect  is  Dante's  mastery  of  his  material, 
that  in  compositions,  as  he  himself  has  shown,  so  artifi 
cial,*  the  form  seems  rather  organic  than  mechanical, 
which  cannot  be  said  of  the  best  of  the  Proven9al  poets 
who  led  the  way  in  this  kind.  Dante's  sonnets  also 
have  a  grace  and  tenderness  which  have  been  seldom 
matched.  His  lyrical  excellence  would  have  got  him 
into  the  Collections,  and  he  would  have  made  here  and 
there  an  enthusiast  as  Donne  does  in  English,  but  his 
great  claim  to  remembrance  is  not  merely  Italian.  It 
is  that  he  was  the  first  Christian  poet,  in  any  proper 
sense  of  the  word,  the  first  who  so  subdued  dogma  to 
the  uses  of  plastic  imagination  as  to  make  something 
that  is  still  poetry  of  the  highest  order  after  it  has  suf 
fered  the  disenchantment  inevitable  in  the  most  perfect 
translation.  Verses  of  the  kind  usually  called  sacred 

*  See  the  second  book  of  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio.  The  only  other 
Italian  poet  who  reminds  us  of  Dante  in  sustained  dignity  is  Guido 
Guinicelli.  Dante  esteemed  him  highly,  calls  him  maximus  in  the  De 
Vulgari  Eloquio,  and  "  the  father  of  me  and  of  my  betters,"  in  the 
XXVI.  Purgatorio.  See  some  excellent  specimens  of  him  in  Mr.  D.  G. 
Rossetti's  remarkable  volume  of  translations  from  the  early  Italian 
poets.  Mr.  Rossetti  would  do  a  real  and  lasting  service  to  literature 
by  employing  his  singular  gift  in  putting  Dante's  minor  poems  into 
English. 


96  DANTE. 

(reminding  one  of  the  adjective's  double  meaning)  had 
been  written  before  his  time  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  — 
such  verses  as  remain  inviolably  sacred  in  the  volumes 
of  specimens,  looked  at  with  distant  reverence  by  the 
pious,  and  with  far  other  feelings  by  the  profane  reader. 
There  were  cycles  of  poems  in  which  the  physical  con 
flict  between  Christianity  and  Paganism*  furnished  the 
subject,  but  in  which  the  theological  views  of  the  au 
thors,  whether  doctrinal  or  historical,  could  hardly  be 
reconciled  with  any  system  of  religion  ancient  or  mod 
ern.  There  were  Church  legends  of  saints  and  martyrs 
versified,  fit  certainly  to  make  any  other  form  of  mar 
tyrdom  seem  amiable  to  those  who  heard  them,  and  to 
suggest  palliative  thoughts  about  Diocletian.  Finally, 
there  were  the  romances  of  Arthur  and  his  knights, 
which  later,  by  means  of  allegory,  contrived  to  be  both 
entertaining  and  edifying ;  every  one  who  listened  to 
them  paying  the  minstrel  his  money,  and  having  his 
choice  whether  he  would  take  them  as  song  or  sermon. 
In  the  heroes  of  some  of  these  certain  Christian  virtues 
were  typified,  and  around  a  few  of  them,  as  the  Holy 
Grail,  a  perfume  yet  lingers  of  cloistered  piety  and  with 
drawal.  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  indeed,  has  divided 
his  Parzival  into  three  books,  of  Simplicity,  Doubt,  and 
Healing,  which  has  led  Gervinus  to  trace  a  not  alto 
gether  fanciful  analogy  between  that  poem  and  the 
Divina  Commedia.  The  doughty  old  poet,  who  says  of 
himself,  — 

"  Of  song  I  have  some  slight  control, 
But  deem  her  of  a  feeble  soul 
That  doth  not  love  my  naked  sword 
Above  my  sweetest  lyric  word," 

tells  us  that  his  subject  is  the  choice  between  good  and 
evil ; 

*  The  old  French  poems  confound  all  unbelievers  together  as  pa 
gans  and  worshippers  of  idols. 


DANTE.  97 

"  Whose  soul  takes  Untruth  for  its  bride 
And  sets  himself  on  Evil's  side, 
Chooses  the  Black,  and  sure  it  is 
His  path  leads  down  to  the  abyss  ; 
But  he  who  doth  his  nature  feed 
With  steadfastness  and  loyal  deed 
Lies  open  to  the  heavenly  light 
And  takes  his  portion  with  the  White." 

But  Wolfram's  poem  has  no  system,  and  shows  good 
feeling  rather  than  settled  conviction.  Above  all  it  is 
wandering  (as  he  himself  confesses),  and  altogether 
wants  any  controlling  purpose.  But  to  whatever  extent 
Christianity  had  insinuated  itself  into  and  colored  Eu 
ropean  literature,  it  was  mainly  as  mythology.  The 
Christian  idea  had  never  yet  incorporated  itself.  It 
was  to  make  its  avatar  in  Dante.  To  understand  fully 
what  he  accomplished  we  must  form  some  conception  of 
what  is  meant  by  the  Christian  idea.  To  bring  it  into 
fuller  relief,  let  us  contrast  it  with  the  Greek  idea  as  it 
appears  in  poetry ;  for  we  are  not  dealing  with  a  ques 
tion  of  theology  so  much  as  with  one  of  aesthetics. 

Greek  art  at  its  highest  point  is  doubtless  the  most 
perfect  that  we  know.  But  its  circle  of  motives  was 
essentially  limited ;  and  the  Greek  drama  in  its  passion, 
its  pathos,  and  its  humor  is  primarily  Greek,  and  secon 
darily  human.  Its  tragedy  chooses  its  actors  from  cer 
tain  heroic  families,  and  finds  its  springs  of  pity  and 
terror  in  physical  suffering  and  worldly  misfortune.  Its 
best  examples,  like  the  Antigone,  illustrate  a  single  duty, 
or,  like  the  Hippolytus,  a  single  passion,  on  which,  as  on 
a  pivot,  the  chief  character,  statuesquely  simple  in  its 
details,  revolves  as  pieces  of  sculpture  are  sometimes 
made  to  do,  displaying  its  different  sides  in  one  invaria 
ble  light.  The  general  impression  left  on  the  mind  (and 
this  is  apt  to  be  a  truer  one  than  any  drawn  from  single 
examples)  is  that  the  duty  is  one  which  is  owed  to.  cus- 
5  G 


98  DANTE. 

torn,  that  the  passion  leads  to  a  breach  of  some  conven 
tion  settled  by  common  consent,*  and  accordingly  it  is 
an  outraged  society  whose  figure  looms  in  the  back 
ground,  rather  than  an  offended  God.  At  most  it  was 
one  god  of  many,  and  meanwhile  another  might  be 
friendly.  In  the  Greek  epic,  the  gods  are  partisans, 
they  hold  caucuses,  they  lobby  and  log-roll  for  their  can 
didates.  The  tacit  admission  of  a  revealed  code  of  mor 
als  wrought  a  great  change.  t  The  complexity  and  range 
of  passion  is  vastly  increased  when  the  offence  is  at  once 
both  crime  and  sin,  a  wrong  done  against  order  and 
against  conscience  at  the  same  time.  The  relation  of 
the  Greek  Tragedy  to  the  higher  powers  is  chiefly  an 
tagonistic,  struggle  against  an  implacable  destiny,  sub 
lime  struggle,  and  of  heroes,  but  sure  of  defeat  at  last. 
And  that  defeat  is  final.  Grand  figures  are  those  it  ex 
hibits  to  us,  in  some  respects  unequalled,  and  in  their 
severe  simplicity  they  compare  with  modern  poetry  as 
sculpture  with  painting.  Considered  merely  as  works 
of  art,  these  products  of  the  Greek  imagination  satisfy 
our  highest  conception  of  form.  They  suggest  inevi 
tably  a  feeling  of  perfect  completeness,  isolation,  and 
independence,  of  something  rounded  and  finished  in 
itself.  The  secret  of  those  old  shapers  died  with  them ; 
their  wand  is  broken,  their  book  sunk  deeper  than  ever 
plummet  sounded.  The  type  of  their  work  is  the  Greek 
Temple,  which  leaves  nothing  to  hope  for  in  unity  and 
perfection  of  design,  in  harmony  and  subordination  of 
parts,  and  in  entireness  of  impression.  But  in  this 
aesthetic  completeness  it  ends.  It  rests  solidly  and 
complacently  on  the  earth,  and  the  mind  rests  there 
with  it. 

*  Dante  is  an  ancient  in  this  respect  as  in  many  others,  but  the  dif 
ference  is  that  with  him  society  is  something  divinely  ordained.  He 
follows  Aristotle  pretty  closely,  but  on  his  own  theory  crime  and  sin 
are  identical, 


DANTE.  99 

Now  the  Christian  idea  has  to  do  with  the  human 
soul,  which  Christianity  may  be  almost  said  to  have  in 
vented.  While  all  Paganism  represents  a  few  pre-emi 
nent  families,  the  founders  of  dynasties  or  ancestors  of 
races,  as  of  kin  with  the  gods,  Christianity  makes  every 
pedigree  end  in  Deity,  makes  monarch  and  slave  the 
children  of  one  God.  Its  heroes  struggle  not  against, 
but  upward  and  onward  toward,  the  higher  powers  who 
are  always  on  their  side.  Its  highest  conception  of 
beauty  is  not  aesthetic,  but  moral.  With  it  prosperity 
and  adversity  have  exchanged  meanings.  It  finds  ene 
mies  in  those  worldly  good-fortunes  where  Pagan  and 
even  Hebrew  literature  saw  the  highest  blessing,  and  in 
vincible  allies  in  sorrow,  poverty,  humbleness  of  station, 
where  the  former  world  recognized  only  implacable  foes. 
While  it  utterly  abolished  all  boundary  lines  of  race  or 
country  and  made  mankind  unitary,  its  hero  is  always 
the  individual  man  whoever  and  wherever  he  may  be. 
Above  all,  an  entirely  new  conception  of  the  Infinite 
and  of  man's  relation  to  it  came  in  with  Christianity. 
That,  and  not  the  finite,  is  always  the  background,  con 
sciously  or  not.  It  changed  the  scene  of  the  last  act  of 
every  drama  to  the  next  world.  Endless  aspiration  of 
all  the  faculties  became  thus  the  ideal  of  Christian  life, 
and  to  express  it  more  or  less  perfectly  the  ideal  of 
essentially  Christian  art.  It  was  this  which  the  Middle 
Ages  instinctively  typified  in  the  Gothic  cathedral, — 
110  accidental  growth,  but  the  visible  symbol  of  an  in 
ward  faith,  —  which  soars  forever  upward,  and  yearns 
toward  heaven  like  a  martyr-flame  suddenly  turned  to 
stone. 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  Goethe,  who,  like 
Dante,  also  absorbed  and  represented  the  tendency  and 
spirit  of  his  age,  should,  during  his  youth  and  while 
Europe  was  alive  with  the  moral  and  intellectual  longing 


100  DANTE. 

which  preluded  the  French  Revolution,  have  loved  the 
Gothic  architecture.  It  is  no  less  significant  that  in 
the  period  of  reaction  toward  more  positive  thought 
which  followed,  he  should  have  preferred  the  Greek. 
His  greatest  poem,  conceived  during  the  former  era,  is 
Gothic.  Dante,  endeavoring  to  conform  himself  to  lit 
erary  tradition,  began  to  write  the  Divina  Commedia  in 
Latin,  and  had  elaborated  several  cantos  of  it  in  that 
dead  and  intractable  material.  But  that  poetic  instinct, 
which  is  never  the  instinct  of  an  individual,  but  of  his 
age,  could  not  so  be  satisfied,  and  leaving  the  classic 
structure  he  had  begun  to  stand  as  a  monument  of 
failure,  he  completed  his  work  in  Italian.  Instead  of 
endeavoring  to  manufacture  a  great  poem  out  of  what 
was  foreign  and  artificial,  he  let  the  poem  make  itself 
out  of  him.  The  epic  which  he  wished  to  write  in  the 
universal  language  of  scholars,  and  which  might  have 
had  its  ten  lines  in  the  history  of  literature,  would  sing 
itself  in  provincial  Tuscan,  and  turns  out  to  be  written 
in  the  universal  dialect  of  mankind.  Thus  all  great 
poets  have  been  in  a  certain  sense  provincial,  —  Homer, 
Dante,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Burns,  Scott  in  the  "  Heart 
of  Midlothian"  and  "  Bride  of  Lammermoor,"  —  because 
the  office  of  the  poet  is  always  vicarious,  because  noth 
ing  that  has  not  been  living  experience  can  become  liv 
ing  expression,  because  the  collective  thought,  the  faith, 
the  desire  of  a  nation  or  a  race,  is  the  cumulative  result 
of  many  ages,  is  something  organic,  and  is  wiser  and 
stronger  than  any  single  person,  and  will  make  a  great 
statesman  or  a  great  poet  out  of  any  man  who  can  en 
tirely  surrender  himself  to  it. 

As  the  Gothic  cathedral,  then,  is  the  type  of  the 
Christian  idea,  so  is  it  also  of  Dante's  poem.  And  as 
that  in  its  artistic  unity  is  but  the  completed  thought 
of  a  single  architect,  which  yet  could  never  have  been 


DANTE.  101 

realized  except  out  of  the  faith  and  by  the  contributions 
of  an  entire  people,  whose  beliefs  and  superstitions, 
•whose  imagination  and  fancy,  find  expression  in  its 
statues  and  its  carvings,  its  calm  saints  and  martyrs 
now  at  rest  forever  in  the  seclusion  of  their  canopied 
niches,  and  its  wanton  grotesques  thrusting  themselves 
forth  from  every  pinnacle  and  gargoyle,  so  in  Dante's 
poem,  while  it  is  as  personal  and  peculiar  as  if  it  were 
his  private  journal  and  autobiography,  we  can  yet  read 
the  diary  and  the  autobiography  of  the  thirteenth  cen 
tury  and  of  the  Italian  people.  Complete  and  harmoni 
ous  in  design  as  his  work  is,  it  is  yet  no  Pagan  temple 
enshrining  a  type  of  the  human  made  divine  by  triumph 
of  corporeal  beauty ;  it  is  not  a  private  chapel  housing 
a  single  saint  and  dedicate  to  qne  chosen  bloom  of 
Christian  piety  or  devotion ;  it  is  truly  a  cathedral,  over 
whose  high  altar  hangs  the  emblem  of  suffering,  of  the 
Divine  made  human  to  teach  the  beauty  of  adversity, 
the  eternal  presence  of  the  spiritual,  not  overhanging 
and  threatening,  but  informing  and  sustaining  the  ma 
terial.  In  this  cathedral  of  Dante's  there  are  side-chap 
els  as  is  fit,  with  altars  to  all  Christian  virtues  and  per 
fections  ;  but  the  great  impression  of  its  leading  thought 
is  that  of  aspiration,  for  ever  and  ever.  In  the  three 
"divisions  of  the  poem  we  may  trace  something  more  than 
a  fancied  analogy  with  a  Christian  basilica.  There  is 
first  the  ethnic  forecourt,  then  the  purgatorial  middle- 
space,  and  last  the  holy  of  holies  dedicated  to  the  eter 
nal  presence  of  the  mediatorial  God. 

But  what  gives  Dante's  poem  a  peculiar  claim  to  the 
title  of  the  first  Christian  poem  is  not  merely  its  doc 
trinal  truth  or  its  Christian  mythology,  but  the  fact 
that  the  scene  of  it  is  laid,  not  in  this  world,  but  in  the 
soul  of  man  ;  that  it  is  the  allegory  of  a  human  life, 
and  therefore  universal  in  its  significance  and  its  appli- 


102  DANTE. 

cation.  The  genius  of  Dante  has  given  to  it  such  a 
self-subsisteut  reality,  that  one  almost  gets  to  feel  as 
if  the  chief  value  of  contemporary  Italian  history  had 
been  to  furnish  it  with  explanatory  foot-notes,  and  the 
age  in  which  it  was  written  assumes  towards  it  the 
place  of  a  satellite.  For  Italy,  Dante  is  the  thirteenth 
century. 

Most  men  make  the  voyage  of  life  as  if  they  carried 
sealed  orders  which  they  were  not  to  open  till  they 
were  fairly  in  mid-ocean.  But  Dante  had  made  up  his 
mind  as  to  the  true  purpose  and  meaning  of  our  exist 
ence  in  this  world,  shortly  after  he  had  passed  his 
twenty-fifth  year.  He  had  already  conceived  the  sys 
tem  about  which  as  a  connecting  thread  the  whole 
experience  of  his  life,  the  whole  result  of  his  studies, 
was  to  cluster  in  imperishable  crystals.  The  corner 
stone  of  his  system  was  the  Freedom  of  the  Will  (in 
other  words,  the  right  of  private  judgment  with  the 
condition  of  accountability),  which  Beatrice  calls  the 
"  noble  virtue."  *  As  to  every  man  is  offered  his  choice 
between  good  and  evil,  and  as,  even  upon  the  root  of 
a  nature  originally  evil  a  habit  of  virtue  may  be  en- 
grafted,t  no  man  is  excused.  "All  hope  abandon  ye 
who  enter  in,"  for  they  have  thrown  away  reason  which 
is  the  good  of  the  intellect,  "  and  it  seems  to  me  no 
less  a  marvel  to  bring  back  to  reason  him  in  whom 
it  is  wholly  spent  than  to  bring  back  to  life  him  who 

*  Purgatorio,  XVIII.  73.  He  defines  it  in  the  De  Monarchia  (Lib.  I. 
§  14).  Among  other  things  he  calls  it  "the  first  beginning  of  our 
liberty."  Paradise,  V.  19,  20,  he  calls  it  "  the  greatest  gift  that  in  his 
largess  God  creating  made."  "  Dico  quod  judiciuin  medium  est  ap- 
preheusionis  et  appetitus."  (De  Monarchia,  uU  supra.) 

"  Bight  and  wrong, 
Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides." 

Troilus  and  Cressida. 

tConvito,  Tr.-IV.  c.  22. 


DANTE.  103 

has  been  four  days  in  the  tomb."*  As  a  guide  of 
the  will  in  civil  affairs  the  Emperor ;  in  spiritual,  the 
Pope.f  Dante  is  not  one  of  those  reformers  who  would 
assume  the  office  of  God  to  "make  all  things  new." 
He  knew  the  power  of  tradition  and  habit,  and  wished 
to  utilize  it  for  his  purpose.  He  found  the  Empire  and 
the  Papacy  already  existing,  but  both  needing  reforma 
tion  that  they  might  serve  the  ends  of  their  original 
institution.  Bad  leadership  was  to  blame  ;  men  fit  to 
gird  on  the  sword  had  been  turned  into  priests,  and 
good  preachers  spoiled  to  make  bad  kings,  j  The  spirit 
ual  had  usurped  to  itself  the  prerogatives  of  the  tem 
poral  power. 

"  Rome,  that  reformed  the  world,  accustomed  was 
Two  suns  to  have  which  one  road  and  the  other, 
Of  God  and  of  the  world,  made  manifest. 
One  has  the  other  quenched,  and  to  the  crosier 
The  sword  is  joined,  and  ill  beseemeth  it, 

Because,  being  joined  one  feareth  not  the  other."  § 

Both  powers  held  their  authority  directly  from  God, 
"  not  so,  however,  that  the  Roman  Prince  is  not  in 
some  things  subject  to  the  Roman  Pontiff,  since  that 
human  felicity  [to  be  attained  only  by  peace,  justice, 
and  good  government,  possible  only  under  a  single 
ruler]  is  in  some  sort  ordained  to  the  end  of  immortal 
felicity.  Let  Csesar  use  that  reverence  toward  Peter 
which  a  first-born  son  ought  to  use  toward  a  father ; 
that,  shone  upon  by  the  light  of  paternal  grace,  he  may 

*  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  7.  "  Qui  descenderit  ad  inferos,  non  ascen- 
det."  Job  vii.  9. 

\  But  it  may  be  inferred  that  he  put  the  interests  of  mankind  above 
both.  " For  citizens,"  he  says,  "exist  not  for  the  sake  of  consuls, 
nor  the  people  for  the  sake  of  the  king,  but,  on  the  contrary,  consuls 
for  the  sake  of  citizens,  and  the  king  for  the  sake  of  the  people." 

J  Paradiso,  VIII.  145,  146. 

§  Purgatorio,  XVI.  106-112. 


104  DANTE. 

more  powerfully  illumine  the  orb  of  earth  over  which 
he  is  set  by  him  alone  who  is  the  ruler  of  all  things 
spiritual  and  temporal."  *  As  to  the  fatal  gift  of  Con- 
Btantine,  Dante  demonstrates  that  an  Emperor  could  not 
alienate  what  he  held  only  in  trust ;  but  if  he  made  the 
gift,  the  Pope  should  hold  it  as  a  feudatory  of  the 
Empire,  for  the  benefit,  however,  of  Christ's  poor.f 
Dante  is  always  careful  to  distinguish  between  the 
Papacy  and  the  Pope.  He  prophesies  for  Boniface 
VIII.  a  place  in  hell,  J  but  acknowledges  him  as  the 
Vicar  of  Christ,  goes  so  far  even  as  to  denounce  the  out 
rage  of  Guillaume  de  Nogaret  at  Anagni  as  done  to  the 
Saviour  himself.  §  But  in  the  Spiritual  World  Dante 
acknowledges  no  such  supremacy,  and,  when  he  would 
have  fallen  on  his  knees  before  Adrian  V.,  is  rebuked  by 
him  in  a  quotation  from  the  Apocalypse  :  — 

"  Err  not,  fellow-servant  am  I 
With  thee  and  with  the  others  to  one  power.  "|| 

So  impartial  was  this  man  whose  great  work  is  so  often 
represented  as  a  kind  of  bag  in  which  he  secreted  the 
gall  of  personal  prejudice,  so  truly  Catholic  is  he,  that 
both  parties  find  their  arsenal  in  him.  The  Romanist 
proves  his  soundness  in  doctrine,  the  anti-Romanist 
claims  him  as  the  first  Protestant ;  the  Mazzinist  and 

*  De  Monarehia,  §  ult. 

+  De  Monarehia,  Lib.  III.  §  10.  "  Poterat  tamen  Imperator  in  patro- 
cinmm  Ecclesise  patrirnonium  et  alia  deputare  immoto  semper  superi 
or!  dorninio  cujus  unitas  divisio  non  patitnr.  Poterat  et  Vicarius  Dei 
recipere,  non  tanquam  possessor,  sed  tanquam  fructuum  pro  Ecclesia 
proque  Christi  pauperisms  dispensator."  He  tells  ns  that  St.  Dominic 
did  not  ask  for  the  tithes  which  belong  to  the  poor  of  God.  (Paradiso, 
XII.  93,  94.)  "Let  them  return  whence  they  came,"  he  says  (De  Mo 
narehia,  L'ib.  II.  §  10)  ;  "they  came  well,  let  them  return  ill,  for  they 
•were  well  given  and  ilfheld." 

t  Inferno,  XIX.  53  ;  Paradiso,  XXX.  145-148. 

§  Purgatorio,  XX.  86-92. 

||  Purgatorio,  XIX.  134,  135. 


DANTE.  105 

the  Imperialist  can  alike  quote  him  for  their  purpose. 
Dante's  ardent  conviction  would  not  let  him  see  that 
both  Church  and  Empire  were  on  the  wane.  If  an 
ugly  suspicion  of  this  would  force  itself  upon  him, 
perhaps  he  only  clung  to  both  the  more  tenaciously ; 
but  he  was  no  blind  theorist.  He  would  reform  the 
Church  through  the  Church,  and  is  less  anxious  for 
Italian  independence  than  for  Italian  good  government 
under  an  Emperor  from  Germany  rather  than  from 
Utopia. 

The  Papacy  was  a  necessary  part  of  Dante's  system, 
as  a  supplement  to  the  Empire,  which  we  strongly  in 
cline  to  believe  was  always  foremost  in  his  mind.  In  a 
passage  already  quoted,  he  says  that  "the  soil  where 
Rome  sits  is  worthy  beyond  what  men  preach  and 
admit,"  that  is,  as  the  birthplace  of  the  Empire.  Both 
in  the  Convito  and  the  De  Monarchia  he  affirms  that 
the  course  of  Roman  history  was  providentially  guided 
from  the  first.  Rome  was  founded  in  the  same  year 
that  brought  into  the  world  David,  ancestor  of  the 
Redeemer  after  the  flesh.  St.  Augustine  said  that  "  God 
showed  in  the  most  opulent  and  illustrious  Empire  of 
the  Romans  hpw  much  the  civil  virtues  might  avail 
even  without  true  religion,  that  it  might  be  understood 
how,  this  added,  men  became  citizens  of  another  city 
whose  king  is  truth,  whose  law  charity,  and  whose 
measure  eternity."  Dante  goes  further  than  this.  He 
makes  the  Romans  as  well  as  the  Jews  a  chosen  people, 
the  one  as  founders  of  civil  society,  the  other  as  de 
positaries  of  the  true  faith.*  One  side  of  Dante's  mind 

*  This  results  from  the  whole  course  of  his  argument  in  the  second 
took  of  De  Monarchia,  and  in  the  VI.  Paradiso  he  calls  the  Ro 
man  eagle  "the  bird  of  God  "  and  "  the  scutcheon  of  God."  We  must 
remember  that  with  Dante  God  is  always  the  "Emperor  of  Heaven," 
the  barons  of  whose  court  are  the  Apostles.  (Paradiso,  XXIV.  115 ; 
Ib.,  XXV.  17.) 

5* 


106  DANTE. 

was  so  practical  and  positive,  and  his  pride  in  the 
Romans  so  intense,*  that  he  sometimes  seems  to  regard 
their  mission  as  the  higher  of  the  two.  Without  peace, 
which  only  good  government  could  give,  mankind  could 
not  arrive  at  the  highest  virtue,  whether  of  the  active 
or  contemplative  life.  "And  since  what  is  true  of  the 
part  is  true  of  the  whole,  and  it  happens  in  the  par 
ticular  man  that  by  sitting  quietly  he  is  perfected  in 
prudence  and  wisdom,  it  is  clear  that  the  human  race 
in  the  quiet  or  tranquillity  of  peace  is  most  freely  and 
easily  disposed  for  its  proper  work  which  is  almost  di 
vine,  as  it  is  written,  '  Thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels.'  f  Whence  it  is  manifest  that  univer 
sal  peace  is  the  best  of  those  things  which  are  ordained 
for  our  beatitude.  Hence  it  is  that  not  riches,  not 
pleasures,  not  honors,  not  length  of  life,  not  health,  not 
strength,  not  comeliness,  was  sung  to  the  shepherds  from 
on  high,  but  peace."  J  It  was  Dante's  experience  of  the 
confusion  of  Italy,  where 

"One  doth  gnaw  the  other 
Of  those  whom,  one  wall  and  one  fosse  shut  in,"  § 

that  suggested  the  thought  of  a  universal  umpire,  for 
that,  after  all,  was  to  be  the  chief  function  of  his  Em 
peror.  He  was  too  wise  to  insist  on  a  uniformity  of 
political  institutions  a  priori,  ||  for  he  seems  to  have 

*  Dante  seems  to  imply  (though  his  name  be  German)  that  he  was 
of  Roman  descent.  He  makes  the  original  inhabitants  of  Florence 
(Inferno,  XV.  77,  78)  of  Roman  seed  ;  and  Cacciaguida,  when  asked 
by  him  about  his  ancestry,  makes  no  more  definite  answer  than  that 
their  dwelling  was  in  the  most  ancient  part  of  the  city.  (Paradiso, 
XVI.  40.) 

f  Man  was  created,  according  to  Dante  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  6),  to 
supply  the  place  of  the  fallen  angels,  and  is  in  a  sense  superior  to  the 
angels,  inasmuch  as  he  has  reason,  which  they  do  not  'need. 

£  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  I.  §  5. 

§  Purgatorio,  VI.  83,  84. 

!l  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  I.  §  16. 


DANTE.  107 

divined  that  the  surest  stay  of  order,  as  of  practical  wis 
dom,  is  habit,  which  is  a  growth,  and  cannot  be  made  off 
hand.  He  believed  with  Aristotle  that  vigorous  minds 
were  intended  by  nature  to  rule,*  and  that  certain  races, 
like  certain  men,  are  born  to  leadership.t  He  calls  de 
mocracies,  oligarchies,  and  petty  princedoms  (tyrannides) 
"  oblique  policies  which  drive  the  human  race  to  slavery, 
as  is  patent  in  all  of  them  to  one  who  reasons."  J  He 
has  nothing  but  pity  for  mankind  when  it  has  become  a 
many -headed  beast,  "despising  the  higher  intellect  ir 
refragable  in  reason,  the  lower  which  hath  the  face  of 
experience."  §  He  had  no  faith  in  a  turbulent  equality 
asserting  the  divine  right  of  Vm  as  good  as  you.  He 
thought  it  fatal  to  all  discipline  :  "  The  confounding  of 
persons  hath  ever  been  the  beginning  of  sickness  in  the 
state."  ||  It  is  the  same  thought  which  Shakespeare 
puts  in  the  mouth  of  Ulysses  :  — 

"  Degree  being  vizarded, 
The  unworthiest  shows  as  fairly  in  the  mask, 

When  degree  is  shaked, 
Which,  is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs, 
The  enterprise  is  sick."  IT 

Yet  no  one  can  read  Dante  without  feeling  that  he  had 
a  high  sense  of  the  worth  of  freedom,  whether  in  thought 
or  government.  He  represents,  indeed,  the  very  object 
of  his  journey  through  the  triple  realm  of  shades  as  a 
search  after  liberty.**  But  it  must  not  be  that  scram 
ble  after  undefined  and  indefinable  rights  which  ends 
always  in  despotism,  equally  degrading  whether  crowned 
with  a  red  cap  or  an  imperial  diadem.  His  theory  of 

*  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  I.  §  5.  J  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  I.  §  14. 

t  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  II.  §  7.  §  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  I.  §  18. 

||    Purgatorio,  XVI.  67,  68. 

Tf  "Troilus  and  Cressida,"  Act  I.  s.  3.    The  whole  speech  is  very 
remarkable  both  in  thought  and  phrase. 
**  Purgatorio,  I.  71. 


108  DANTE. 

liberty  has  for  its  corner-stone  the  Freedom  of  the  Will, 
and  the  will  is  free  only  when  the  judgment  wholly  con 
trols  the  appetite.*  On  such  a  base  even  a  democracy 
may  rest  secure,  and  on  such  alone. 

Rome  was  always  the  central  point  of  Dante's  specu 
lation.  A  shadow  of  her  old  sovereignty  was  still  left 
her  in  the  primacy  of  the  Church,  to  which  unity  of  faith 
was  essential.  He  accordingly  has  no  sympathy  with 
heretics  of  whatever  kind.  He  puts  the  ex-troubadour 
Bishop  of  Marseilles,  chief  instigator  of  the  horrors  of 
Provence,  in  paradise.t  The  Church  is  infallible  in 
spiritual  matters,  but  this  is  an  affair  of  outward  dis 
cipline  merely,  and  means  the  Church  as  a  form  of  pol 
ity.  Unity  was  Dante's  leading  doctrine,  and  therefore 
he  puts  Mahomet  among  the  schismatics,  not  because  he 
divided  the  Church,  but  the  faith.  +  Dante's  Church  was 
of  this  world,  but  he  surely  believed  in  another  and 
spiritual  one.  It  has  been  questioned  whether  he  was 
orthodox  or  not.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  it  so  far 
as  outward  assent  and  conformity  are  concerned,  which 
he  would  practice  himself  and  enforce  upon  others  as 
the  first  postulate  of  order,  the  prerequisite  for  all  hap 
piness  in  this  life.  In  regard  to  the  Visible  Church  he 
was  a  reformer,  but  no  revolutionist ;  it  is  sheer  igno 
rance  to  speak  of  him  as  if  there  were  anything  new  or 
exceptional  in  his  denunciation  of  the  corruptions  of 
the  clergy.  They  were  the  commonplaces  of  the  age, 
nor  were  they  confined  to  laymen.§  To  the  absolute 
authority  of  the  Church  Dante  admitted  some  excep 
tions.  He  denies  that  the  supreme  Pontiff  has  the  un- 


*  De  Monarch  ia,  Lib.  I.  §  14.  f  Paradise,  IX. 

J  Inferno,  XXXVIII.  ;  Purgatorio,  XXXII. 

§  See  the  poems  of  Walter  Mapes  (who  was  Archdeacon  of  Oxford); 
the  "  Bible  Guiot,"  and  the  "  Bible  au  seignor  de  Berze,"  Barbazaa 
and  Meon,  II. 


DANTE.  109 

limited  power  of  binding  and  loosing  claimed  for  him. 
"  Otherwise  he  might  absolve  me  impenitent,  which  God 
himself  could  not  do."  * 

"  By  malison  of  theirs  is  not  so  lost 
Eternal  Love  that  it  cannot  return."  •}• 

Nor  does  the  sacredness  of  the  office  extend  to  him  who 
chances  to  hold  it.  Philip  the  Fair  himself  could  hard 
ly  treat  Boniface  VIII.  worse  than  he.  With  wonder 
ful  audacity,  he  declares  the  Papal  throne  vacant  by 
the  mouth  of  Saint  Peter  himself.  J  Even  if  his  theory 
of  a  dual  government  were  not  in  question,  Dante  must 
have  been  very  cautious  in  meddling  with  the  Church. 
It  was  not  an  age  that  stood  much  upon  ceremony.  He 
himself  tells  us  he  had  seen  men  burned  alive,  and  the 
author  of  the  Ottimo  Comento  says  :  "  I  the  writer  saw 
followers  of  his  [Fra  Dolcino]  burned  at  Padua  to  the 
number  of  twenty-two  together."§  Clearly,  in  such  a 
time  as  this,  one  must  not  make  "  the  veil  of  the  mys 
terious  verse"  too  thin. || 

In  the  affairs  of  this  life  Dante  was,  as  we  have  said, 
supremely  practical,  and  he  makes  prudence  the  chief 
of  the  cardinal  virtues.  II  He  has  made  up  his  mind  to 
take  things  as  they  come,  and  to  do  at  Rome  as  the 
Romans  do. 

"  Ah,  savage  company  !  but  in  the  Church 
With  saints,  and  in  the  tavern  with  the  gluttons  ! "  ** 

In  the  world  of  thought  it  was  otherwise,  and  here 
Dante's  doctrine,  if  not  precisely  esoteric,  was  certainly 
not  that  of  his  day,  and  must  be  gathered  from  hints 

*  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  III.  §  8. 

f  Purgatorio,  III.  133,  134. 

t  Paradiso,  XXVII.  22. 

§  Purgatorio,  XXVII.  18  ;  Ottimo,  Inferno,  XXVIII.  55. 

(I  Inferno,  IX.  63  ;  Purgatorio,  VIII.  20. 

IT  Purgatorio,  XXIX.  131,  132. 

**  Inferno,  XXII.  13,  14. 


110  DANTE. 

rather  than  direct  statements.  The  general  notion  of 
God  was  still  (perhaps  is  largely  even  now)  of  a  provin 
cial,  one  might  almost  say  a  denominational,  Deity. 
The  popular  poets  always  represent  Macon,  Apolin,  Ter- 
vagant,  and  the  rest  as  quasi-deities  unable  to  resist 
the  superior  strength  of  the  Christian  God.  The  Pay- 
nim  answers  the  arguments  of  his  would-be  converters 
with  the  taunt  that  he  would  never  worship  a  divinity 
who  could  not  save  himself  from  being  done  ignomin- 
iotisly  to  death.  Dante  evidently  was  not  satisfied  with 
the  narrow  conception  which  limits  the  interest  of  the 
Deity  to  the  affairs  of  Jews  and  Christians.  That  say 
ing  of  Saint  Paul,  "  Whom,  therefore,  ye  ignorantly  wor 
ship,  him  declare  I  unto  you,"  had  perhaps  influenced 
him,  but  his  belief  in  the  divine  mission  of  the  Roman 
people  probably  was  conclusive.  "  The  Roman  Empire 
had  the  help  of  miracles  in  perfecting  itself,"  he  says, 
and  then  enumerates  some  of  them.  The  first  is  that 
"  under  Numa  Pompilius,  the  second  king  of  the  Romans, 
when  he  was  sacrificing  according  to  the  rite  of  the  Gen 
tiles,  a  shield  fell  from  heaven  into  the  city  chosen  of 
God."*  In  the  Convito  we  find  "Virgil  speaking  in 
the  person  of  God,"  and  ^Eacus  "  wisely  having  recourse 
to  God,"  the  god  being  Jupiter,  t  Ephialtes  is  punished 
in  hell  for  rebellion  against  "the  Supreme  Jove,"J  and, 
that  there  may  be  no  misunderstanding,  Dante  elsewhere 

invokes  the 

"  Jove  Supreme, 
Who  upon  earth  for  us  wast  crucified. "  § 

It  is  noticeable  also  that  Dante,  with  evident  design, 

*  Be  Monarchia,  Lib.  II.  §  4. 

t  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  4 ;  Ib.,  c.  27  ;  ^neid,  I.  178,  179 ;  Ovid's 
Met.,  VII. 

t  Inferno,  XXXI.  92. 

§  Purgatorio,  VI.  118, 119.  Pulci,  not  understanding,  has  parodied 
this.  ("Morgante,"  Canto  II.  st.  1.) 


DANTE.  Ill 

constantly  alternates  examples  drawn  from  Christian  and 
Pagan  tradition  or  mythology.*  He  had  conceived  a 
unity  in  the  human  race,  all  of  whose  branches  had 
•worshipped  the  same  God  under  divers  names  and  as 
pects,  had  arrived  at  the  same  truth  by  different  roads. 
We  cannot  understand  a  passage  in  the  twenty-sixth 
Paradiso,  where  Dante  inquires  of  Adam  concerning  the 
names  of  God,  except  as  a  hint  that  the  Chosen  People 
had  done  in  this  thing  even  as  the  Gentiles  did.f  It 
is  true  that  he  puts  all  Pagans  in  Limbo,  "  where  with 
out  hope  they  live  in  longing,"  and  that  he  makes  bap 
tism  essential  to  salvation.  J  But  it  is  noticeable  that 
his  Limbo  is  the  Elysium  of  Virgil,  and  that  he  particu 
larizes  Adam,  Noah,  Moses,  Abraham,  David,  and  others 
as  prisoners  there  with  the  rest  till  the  descent  of  Christ 
into  hell.  §  But  were  they  altogether  without  hope  1 
and  did  baptism  mean  an  immersion  of  the  body  or  a 
purification  of  the  soul  1  The  state  of  the  heathen  after 
death  had  evidently  been  to  Dante  one  of  those  doubts 
that  spring  up  at  the  foot  of  every  truth.  In  the  De 
Monarchia  he  says :  "  There  are  some  judgments  of 
God  to  which,  though  human  reason  cannot  attain  by 
its  own  strength,  yet  is  it  lifted  to  them  by  the  help  of 
faith  and  of  those  things  which  are  said  to  us  in  Holy 
Writ,  —  as  to  this,  that  no  one,  however  perfect  in  the 

*  See,  for  example,  Purgatorio,  XX.  100-117. 

+  We  believe  that  Dante,  though  he  did  not  understand  Greek, 
knew  something  of  Hebrew.  He  would  have  been  likely  to  study  it  as 
the  sacred  language,  and  opportunities  of  profiting  by  the  help  of 
learned  Jews  could  not  have  been  wanting  to  him  in  his  wanderings. 
In  the  above-cited  passage  some  of  the  best  texts  read  /  s1  appellava, 
and  others  Un  s'  appellava.  God  was  called  I  (the  Je  in  Jehovah)  or 
One,  and  afterwards  El,  —  the  strong,  —  an  epithet  given  to  many 
gods.  Whichever  reading  we  adopt,  the  meaning  and  the  inference 
from  it  are  the  same. 

J  Inferno,  IV. 

§  Dante's  "  Limbo,"  of  course,  is  the  older  "Limbus  Patrum." 


112  DANTE. 

moral  and  intellectual  virtues  both  as  a  habit  [of  the 
mind]  and  in  practice,  can  be  saved  without  faith,  it  be 
ing  granted  that  he  shall  never  have  heard  anything 
concerning  Christ ;  for  the  unaided  reason  of  man  can 
not  look  upon  this  as  just;  nevertheless,  with  the  help 
of  faith,  it  can."*  But  faith,  it  should  seem,  was  long 
in  lifting  Dante  to  this  height ;  for  in  the  nineteenth 
canto  of  the  Paradiso,  which  must  have  been  written 
many  years  after  the  passage  just  cited,  the  doubt  recurs 
again,  and  we  are  told  that  it  was  "  a  cavern,"  concern 
ing  which  he  had  "made  frequent  questioning."  The 
answer  is  given  here  :  — 

"  Truly  to  him  who  with  me  subtilizes, 
If  so  the  Scripture  were  not  over  you, 
For  doubting  there  were  marvellous  occasion." 

But  what  Scripture?  Dante  seems  cautious,  tells  us 
that  the  eternal  judgments  are  above  our  comprehen 
sion,  postpones  the  answer,  and  when  it  comes,  puts  an 
orthodox  prophylactic  before  it  :  — 

"  Unto  this  kingdom  never 
Ascended  one  who  had  not  faith  in  Christ 
Before  or  since  he  to  the  tree  was  nailed. 
But  look  thou,  many  crying  are,  '  Christ,  Christ ! ' 
Who  at  the  judgment  shall  be  far  less  near 
To  him  than  some  shall  be  who  knew  not  Christ." 

There  is,  then,  some  hope  for  the  man  born  on  the 
bank  of  Indus  who  has  never  heard  of  Christ  1  Dante 
is  still  cautious,  but  answers  the  question  indirectly  in 
the  next  canto  by  putting  the  Trojan  Eipheus  among 
the  blessed  :  — 

"  Who  would  believe,  down  in  the  errant  world, 
That  e'er  the  Trojan  Ripheus  in  this  round 
Could  be  the  fifth  one  of  these  holy  lights  ? 
Now  knoweth  he  enough  of  what  the  world 
Has  not  the  power  to  see  of  grace  divine, 
Although  his  sight  may  not  discern  the  bottom." 

*  De  Monarchia,  Lib.  II.  §  8. 


DANTE.  113 

Then  he  seems  to  hesitate  again,  brings  in  the  Church 
legend  of  Trajan  brought  back  to  life  by  the  prayers  of 
Gregory  the  Great  that  he  might  be  converted ;  and 
after  an  interval  of  fifty  lines  tells  us  how  Ripheus  was 
saved :  — 

"  The  other  one,  through  grace  that  from  so  deep 
A  fountain  wells  that  never  hath  the  eye 
Of  any  creature  reached  its  primal  wave, 
Set  all  his  love  below  on  righteousness  ; 
Wherefore  from  grace  to  grace  did  God  unclose 
His  eye  to  our  redemption  yet  to  be, 
Whence  he  believed  therein,  and  suifered  not 
From  that  day  forth  the  stench  of  Paganism, 
And  he  reproved  therefor  the  folk  perverse. 
Those  maidens  three,  whom  at  the  right-hand  wheel  * 
Thou  didst  behold,  were  unto  him  for  baptism 
More  than  a  thousand  years  before  baptizing." 

If  the  reader  recall  a  passage  already  quoted  from  the 
Convito,-^  he  will  perhaps  think  with  us  that  the  gate 
of  Dante's  Limbo  is  left  ajar  even  for  the  ancient  phi 
losophers  to  slip  out.  The  divine  judgments  are  still 
inscrutable,  and  the  ways  of  God  past  finding  out,  but 
faith  would  seem  to  have  led  Dante  at  last  to  a  more 
merciful  solution  of  his  doubt  than  he  had  reached 
when  he  wrote  the  De  Monarchia.  It  is  always  human 
izing  to  see  how  the  most  rigid  creed  is  made  to  bend 
before  the  kindlier  instincts  of  the  heart.  The  stern 
Dante  thinks  none  beyond  hope  save  those  who  are  dead 
in  sin,  and  have  made  evil  their  good.  But  we  are  by 
no  means  sure  that  he  is  not  right  in  insisting  rather  on 
the  implacable  severity  of  the  law  than  on  the  possible 
relenting  of  the  judge.  Exact  justice  is  commonly 
more  merciful  in  the  long  run  than  pity,  for  it  tends  to 

*  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity.    (Purgatorio,  XXIX.  121.)   Mr.  Long 
fellow  has  translated  the  last  verse  literally.     The  meaning  is, 

"  More  than  a  thousand  years  ere  baptism  was." 
+  In  which  the  celestial  Athens  is  mentioned. 

H 


114  DANTE. 

foster  in  men  those  stronger  qualities  which  make  them 
good  citizens,  an  object  second  only  with  the  Roman- 
minded  Dante  to  that  of  making  them  spiritually  re 
generate,  nay,  perhaps  even  more  important  as  a  neces 
sary  preliminary  to  it.  The  inscription  over  the  gate 
of  hell  tells  us  that  the  terms  on  which  we  receive  the 
trust  of  life  were  fixed  by  the  Divine  Power  (which 
can  what  it  wills),  and  are  therefore  unchangeable ;  by 
the  Highest  Wisdom,  and  therefore  for  our  truest  good  ; 
by  the  Primal  Love,  and  therefore  the  kindest.  These 
are  the  three  attributes  of  that  justice  which  moved 
the  maker  of  them.  Dante  is  no  harsher  than  experi 
ence,  which  always  exacts  the  uttermost  farthing ;  no 
more  inexorable  than  conscience,  which  never  forgives 
nor  forgets.  No  teaching  is  truer  or  more  continually 
needful  than  that  the  stains  of  the  soul  are  ineffaceable, 
and  that  though  their  growth  may  be  arrested,  their 
nature  is  to  spread  insidiously  till  they  have  brought  all 
to  their  own  color.  Evil  is  a  far  more  cunning  and  per 
severing  propagandist  than  Good,  for  it  has  no  inward 
strength,  and  is  driven  to  seek  countenance  and  sympa 
thy.  It  must  have  company,  for  it  cannot  bear  to  be 
alone  in  the  dark,  while 

"Virtue  can  see  to  do  what  Virtue  would 
By  her  own  radiant  light." 

There  is  one  other  point  which  we  will  dwell  on  for  a 
moment  as  bearing  on  the  question  of  Dante's  ortho 
doxy.  His  nature  was  one  in  which,  as  in  Swedenborg's, 
a  clear  practical  understanding  was  continually  streamed 
over  by  the  northern  lights  of  mysticism,  through  which 
the  familiar  stars  shine  with  a  softened  and  more  spirit 
ual  lustre.  Nothing  is  more  interesting  than  the  way 
in  which  the  two  qualities  of  his  mind  alternate,  and 
indeed  play  into  each  other,  tingeing  his  matter-of-fact 
sometimes  with  unexpected  glows  of  fancy,  sometimes 


DANTE.  115 

giving  an  almost  geometrical  precision  to  his  most  mys 
tical  visions.  In  his  letter  to  Can  Grande  he  says  :  "  It 
behooves  not  those  to  whom  it  is  given  to  know  what  is 
best  in  us  to  follow  the  footprints  of  the  herd  ;  much 
rather  are  they  bound  to  oppose  its  wanderings.  For 
the  vigorous  in  intellect  and  reason,  endowed  with  a 
certain  divine  liberty,  are  constrained  by  no  customs. 
Nor  is  it  wonderful,  since  they  are  not  governed  by  the 
laws,  but  much  more  govern  the  laws  themselves."  It 
is  not  impossible  that  Dante,  whose  love  of  knowledge 
was  all-embracing,  may  have  got  some  hint  of  the  doc 
trine  of  the  Oriental  Sufis.  With  them  the  first  and 
lowest  of  the  steps  that  lead  upward  to  perfection  is  the 
Law,  a  strict  observance  of  which  is  all  that  is  expected 
of  the  ordinary  man  whose  mind  is  not  open  to  the 
conception  of  a  higher  virtue  and  holiness.  But  the 
Sufi  puts  himself  under  the  guidance  of  some  holy  man 
[Virgil  in  the  Inferno],  whose  teaching  he  receives  im 
plicitly,  and  so  arrives  at  the  second  step,  which  is  the 
Path  \Purgatorio\  by  which  he  reaches  a  point  where  he 
is  freed  from  all  outward  ceremonials  and  observances, 
and  has  risen  from  an  outward  to  a  spiritual  worship. 
The  third  step  is  Knowledge  [Paradiso\,  endowed  by 
which  with  supernatural  insight,  he  becomes  like  the 
angels  about  the  throne,  and  has  but  one  farther  step 
to  take  before  he  reaches  the  goal  and  becomes  one  with 
God.  The  analogies  of  this  system  with  Dante's  are 
obvious  and  striking.  They  become  still  more  so  when 
Virgil  takes  leave  of  him  at  the  entrance  of  the  Terres 
trial  Paradise  with  the  words  :  — 

"  Expect  no  more  a  word  or  sign  from  me  ; 
Free  and  upright  and  sound  is  thy  free-will, 
And  error  were  it  not  to  do  its  bidding  ; 
Thee  o'er  thyself  I  therefore  crown  and  mitre,"  * 

*  Purgatorio,  XXVII.  139-142. 


116  DANTE. 

that  is,  "  I  make  thee  king  and  bishop  over  thyself;  the 
inward  light  is  to  be  thy  law  in  things  both  temporal 
and  spiritual."  The  originality  of  Dante  consists  in  his 
not  allowing  any  divorce  between  the  intellect  and  the 
soul  in  its  highest  sense,  in  his  making  reason  and  in 
tuition  work  together  to  the  same  end  of  spiritual  per 
fection.  The  unsatisfactoriness  of  science  leads  Faust 
to  seek  repose  in  worldly  pleasure ;  it  led  Dante  to 
find  it  in  faith,  of  whose  efficacy  the  short-coming  of  all 
logical  substitutes  for  it  was  the  most  convincing  argu 
ment.  That  we  cannot  know,  is  to  him  a  proof  that 
there  is  some  higher  plane  on  which  we  can  believe  and 
see.  Dante  had  discovered  the  incalculable  worth  of  a 
single  idea  as  compared  with  the  largest  heap  of  facts 
ever  gathered.  To  a  man  more  interested  in  the  soul 
of  things  than  in  the  body  of  them,  the  little  finger  of 
Plato  is  thicker  than  the  loins  of  Aristotle. 

We  cannot  but  think  that  there  is  something  like  a 
fallacy  in  Mr.  Buckle's  theory  that  the  advance  of  man 
kind  is  necessarily  in  the  direction  of  science,  and  not 
in  that  of  morals.  No  doubt  the  laws  of  morals  existed 
from  the  beginning,  but  so  also  did  those  of  science, 
and  it  is  by  the  application,  not  the  mere  recognition, 
of  both  that  the  race  is  benefited.  No  one  questions 
how  much  science  has  done  for  our  physical  comfort 
and  convenience,  and  with  the  mass  of  men  these  per 
haps  must  of  necessity  precede  the  quickening  of  their 
moral  instincts  ;  but  such  material  gains  are  illusory, 
Tinless  they  go  hand  in  hand  with  a  corresponding  eth 
ical  advance.  The  man  who  gives  his  life  for  a  prin 
ciple  has  done  more  for  his  kind  than  he  who  discov 
ers  a  new  metal  or  names  a  new  gas,  for  the  great  mo 
tors  of  the  race  are  moral,  not  intellectual,  and  their 
force  lies  ready  to  the  use  of  the  poorest  and  weakest 
of  us  all.  We  accept  a  truth  of  science  so  soon  as  it  is 


DANTE.  117 

demonstrated,  are  perfectly  willing  to  take  it  on  author 
ity,  can  appropriate  whatever  use  there  may  be  in  it 
without  the  least  understanding  of  its  processes,  as  men 
send  messages  by  the  electric  telegraph,  but  every  truth 
of  morals  must  be  redemonstrated  in  the  experience  of 
the  individual  man  before  he  is  capable  of  utilizing  it 
as  a  constituent  of  character  or  a  guide  in  action.  A 
man  does  not  receive  the  statements  that  "two  and  two 
make  four,"  and  that  "the  pure  in  heart  shall  see 
God,"  on  the  same  terms.  The  one  can  be  proved  to 
him  with  four  grains  of  corn  ;  he  can  never  arrive  at  a 
belief  in  the  other  till  he  realize  it  in  the  intimate  per 
suasion  of  his  whole  being.  This  is  typified  in  the 
mystery  of  the  incarnation.  The  divine  reason  must 
forever  manifest  itself  anew  in  the  lives  of  men,  and 
that  as  individuals.  This  atonement  with  God,  this 
identification  of  the  man  with  the  truth,*  so  that  right 
action  shall  not  result  from  the  lower  reason  of  utility, 
but  from  the  higher  of  a  will  so  purified  of  self  as  to 
sympathize  by  instinct  with  the  eternal  laws,f  is  not 
something  that  can  be  done  once  for  all,  that  can  be 
come  historic  and  traditional,  a  dead  flower  pressed 
between  the  leaves  of  the  family  Bible,  but  must  be 
renewed  in  every  generation,  and  in  the  soul  of  every 
man,  that  it  may  be  valid.  Certain  sects  show  their 
recognition  of  this  in  what  are  called  revivals,  a  gross 
and  carnal  attempt  to  apply  truth,  as  it  were,  mechan 
ically,  and  to  accomplish  by  the  etherization  of  excite 
ment  and  the  magnetism  of  crowds  what  is  possible 

*  "I  conceived  myself  to  be  now,"  says  Milton,  "not  as  mine  own 
person,  but  as  a  member  incorporate  into  that  truth  whereof  I  was 
persuaded." 

•f-  "  But  now  was  turning  my  desire  and  will, 
Even  as  a  wheel  that  equally  is  moved, 
The  Love  that  moves  the  sun  and  other  stars." 

Paradiso,  XXXIII.,  closing  verses  of  the  Divina  Comraedia. 


118  DANTE. 

only  in  the  solitary  exaltations  of  the  soul.  This  is  the 
high  moral  of  Dante's  poem.  We  have  likened  it  to  a 
Christian  basilica ;  and  as  in  that  so  there  is  here  also, 
painted  or  carven,  every  image  of  beauty  and  holiness 
the  artist's  mind  could  conceive  for  the  adornment  of 
the  holy  place.  We  may  linger  to  enjoy  these  if  we  will, 
but  if  we  follow  the  central  thought  that  runs  like  the 
nave  from  entrance  to  choir,  it  leads  us  to  an  image  of  the 
divine  made  human,  to  teach  us  how  the  human  might 
also  make  itself  divine.  Dante  beholds  at  last  an  image 
of  that  Power,  Love,  and  Wisdom,  one  in  essence,  but 
trine  in  manifestation,  to  answer  the  needs  of  our  triple 
nature  and  satisfy  the  senses,  the  heart,  and  the  mind.. 

"  Within  the  deep  and  luminous  subsistence 
Of  the  High  Light  appeared  to  me  three  circles 
Of  threefold  color  and  of  one  dimension, 
And  by  the  second  seemed  the  first  reflected 
As  iris  is  by  iris,  and  the  third 
Seemed  fire  that  equally  by  both  is  breathed. 

Within  itself,  of  its  own  very  color; 
Seemed  to  me  painted  with  our  effigy, 
Wherefore  my  sight  was  all  absorbed  therein." 

He  had  reached  the  high  altar  where  the  miracle  of 
transubstantiation  is  wrought,  itself  also  a  type  of  the 
great  conversion  that  may  be  accomplished  in  our  own 
nature  (the  lower  thing  assuming  the  qualities  of  the 
higher),  not  by  any  process  of  reason,  but  by  the  very 
fire  of  the  divine  love. 

"  Then  there  smote  my  mind 
A  flash  of  lightning  wherein  came  its  wish."  * 

*  Dante  seems  to  allude  directly  to  this  article  of  the  Catholic  faith 
when  he  says,  on  entering  the  Celestial  Paradise,  "to  signify  trans- 
humanizing  by  words  could  not  be  done,"  and  questions  whether  he 
was  there  in  the  renewed  spirit  only  or  in  the  flesh  also :  — 
"  If  I  was  merely  what  of  me  thou  newly 
Createdst,  Love  who  governest  the  heavens, 
Thou  knowest  who  didst  lift  me  with  thy  light." 

Paradiso,  I.  70-75. 


DANTE.  119 

Perhaps  it  seems  little  to  say  that  Dante  was  the 
first  great  poet  who  ever  made  a  poem  wholly  out  of 
himself,  but,. rightly  looked  at,  it  implies  a  wonderful 
self-reliance  and  originality  in  his  genius.  His  is  the 
first  keel  that  ever  ventured  into  the  silent  sea  of  hu 
man  consciousness  to  find  a  new  world  of  poetry. 

"L"  acqua  ch'  io  prendo  giammai  non  si  corse."  * 
He  discovered  that  not  only  the  story  of  some  heroic 
person,  but  that  of  any  man  might  be  epical ;  that  the 
way  to  heaven  was  not  outside  the  world,  but  through 
it.  Living  at  a  time  when  the  end  of  the  world  was 
still  looked  for  as  imminent,t  he  believed  that  the  sec 
ond  coming  of  the  Lord  was  to  take  place  on  no  more 
conspicuous  stage  than  the  soul  of  man ;  that  his  king 
dom  would  be  established  in  the  surrendered  will.  A 
poem,  the  precious  distillation  of  such  a  character  and 
such  a  life  as  his  through  all  those  sorrowing  but  un- 
despondent  years,  must  have  a  meaning  in  it  which  few 
men  have  meaning  enough  in  themselves  wholly  to  pen 
etrate.  That  its  allegorical  form  belongs  to  a  past  fash 
ion,  with  which  the  modern  mind  has  little  sympathy, 
we  should  no  more  think  of  denying  than  of  whitewash 
ing  a  fresco  of  Giotto.  But  we  may  take  it  as  we  may 
nature,  which  is  also  full  of  double  meanings,  either  as 
picture  or  as  parable,  either  for  the  simple  delight  of  its 
beauty  or  as  a  shadow  of  the  spiritual  world.  We  may 
take  it  as  we  may  history,  either  for  its  picturesqueness 
or  its  moral,  either  for  the  variety  of  its  figures,  or  as  a 
witness  to  that  perpetual  presence  of  God  in  his  crea 
tion  of  which  Dante  was  so  profoundly  sensible.  He 
had  seen  and  suffered  much,  but  it  is  only  to  the  man 

*  Paradise,  II.  7.     Lucretius  makes  the  same  boast :  — 
"  Avia  Pieridum  peragro  loca  nullius  ante 
Trita  solo." 

+  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  15. 


120  DANTE. 

who  is  himself  of  value  that  experience  is  valuable.  He 
had  not  looked  on  man  and  nature  as  most  of  us  do, 
with  less  interest  than  into  the  columns  of  our  daily 
newspaper.  He  saw  in  them  the  latest  authentic  news 
of  the  God  who  made  them,  for  he  carried  everywhere 
that  vision  washed  clear  with  tears  which  detects  the 
meaning  under  the  mask,  and,  beneath  the  casual  and 
transitory,  the  eternal  keeping  its  sleepless  watch.  The 
secret  of  Dante's  power  is  not  far  to  seek.  Whoever 
can  express  himself  with  the  full  force  of  unconscious 
sincerity  will  be  found  to  have  uttered  something  ideal 
and  universal.  Dante  intended  a  didactic  poem,  but 
the  most  picturesque  of  poets  could  not  escape  his 
genius,  and  his  sermon  sings  and  glows  and  charms  in 
a  manner  that  surprises  more  at  the  fiftieth  reading 
than  the  first,  such  variety  of  freshness  is  in  imagina 
tion. 

There  are  no  doubt  in  the  Divina  Commedia  (regarded 
merely  as  poetry)  sandy  spaces  enough  both  of  physics 
and  metaphysics,  but  with  every  deduction  Dante  re 
mains  the  first  of  descriptive  as  well  as  moral  poets. 
His  verse  is  as  various  as  the  feeling  it  conveys ;  now  it 
has  the  terseness  and  edge  of  steel,  and  now  palpitates 
with  iridescent  softness  like  the  breast  of  a  dove.  In 
vividness  he  is  without  a  rival.  He  drags  back  by  its 
tangled  locks  the  unwilling  head  of  some  petty  traitor 
of  an  Italian  provincial  town,  lets  the  fire  glare  on  the 
sullen  face  for  a  moment,  and  it  sears  itself  into  the 
memory  forever.  He  shows  us  an  angel  glowing  with 
that  love  of  God  which  makes  him  a  star  even  amid  the 
glory  of  heaven,  and  the  holy  shape  keeps  lifelong  watch 
in  our  fantasy  constant  as  a  sentinel.  He  has  the  skill 
of  conveying  impressions  indirectly.  In  the  gloom  of 
hell  his  bodily  presence  is  revealed  by  his  stirring  some 
thing,  on  the  mount  of  expiation  by  casting  a  shadow. 


DANTE.  121 

Would  he  have  us  feel  the  brightness  of  an  angel  ]  He 
makes  him  whiten  afar  through  the  smoke  like  a  dawn,* 
or,  walking  straight  toward  the  setting  sun,  he  finds  his 
eyes  suddenly  unable  to  withstand  a  greater  splendor 
against  which  his  hand  is  unavailing  to  shield  him. 
Even  its  reflected  light,  then,  is  brighter  than  the  direct 
ray  of  the  sun.t  And  how  much  more  keenly  do  we 
feel  the  parched  lips  of  Master  Adam  for  those  rivulets 
of  the  Casentino  which  run  down  into  the  Aruo,  "  mak 
ing  their  channels  cool  and  soft "  !  His  comparisons  are 
as  fresh,  as  simple,  and  as  directly  from  nature  as  those 
of  Homer.  j  Sometimes  they  show  a  more  subtle  ob 
servation,  as  where  he  compares  the  stooping  of  Antseus 
over  him  to  the  leaning  tower  of  Garisenda,  to  which 
the  clouds,  flying  in  an  opposite  direction  to  its  inclina 
tion,  give  away  their  motion.  §  His  suggestions  of  in 
dividuality,  too,  from  attitude  or  speech,  as  in  Farinata, 
Sordello,  or  Pia,  ||  give  in  a  hint  what  is  worth  acres  of 
so-called  character-painting.  In  straightforward  pathos, 
the  single  and  sufficient  thrust  of  phrase,  he  has  no 
competitor.  He  is  too  sternly  touched  to  be  effusive 
and  tearful : 

"  Io  non  piangeva,  si  clentro  impietrai."  ^[ 

*  Purgatorio,  XVI.  142.    Here  is  Milton's   "Far  off   his  coming 
shone." 

+  Purgatorio,  XV.  7,  et  seq. 

J  See,  for  example,  Inferno,  XVII.  127-132;  Ib.  XXIV.  7-12; 
Purgatorio,   II.  124-129;  Ib.,   III.   79-84;    Ib.,  XXVII.  76-81; 
Paradise,  XIX.  91-93 ;  Ib.  XXI.  34-39  ;  Ib.  XXIII.  1-9. 
§    Inferno,  XXXI.  136-138. 

"  And  those  thin  clouds  above,  in  flakes  and  bars, 
That  give  away  their  motion  to  the  stars." 

COLERIDGE,  "Dejection,  an  Ode." 

See  also  the  comparison  of  the  dimness  of  the  faces  seen  around  him 
in  Paradise  to  "a  pearl  on  a  white  forehead."     (Paradise,  III.  14.) 
||  Inferno,  X.  35-41  ;  Purgatorio,  VI.  61-66  ;  Ib.,  X.  133. 
IT  For  example,  Cavalcanti's  Come  dicesti  eyli  ebbe  ?    (Inferno,  X.  67, 
68.)    Anselmuccio's  Tu  gvardi  si,  padre,  che  hai  ?    (Inferno,  XXXIII. 
51.) 


122  DANTE. 

His  is  always  the  true  coin  of  speech, 

"  Si  lucida  e  si  touda 
Che  nel  suo  conio  nulla  ci  s'  inforsa," 

and  never  the  highly  ornamented  promise  to  pay,  token 
of  insolvency. 

No  doubt  it  is  primarily  by  his  poetic  qualities  that 
a  poet  must  be  judged,  for  it  is  by  these,  if  by  anything, 
that  he  is  to  maintain  his  place  in  literature.  And  he 
must  be  judged  by  them  absolutely,  with  reference,  that 
is,  to  the  highest  standard,  and  not  relatively  to  the 
fashions  and  opportunities  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived. 
Yet  these  considerations  must  fairly  enter  into  our 
decision  of  another  side  of  the  question,  and  one  that 
has  much  to  do  with  the  true  quality  of  the  man,  with 
his  character  as  distinguished  from  his  talent,  and  there 
fore  with  how  much  he  will  influence  men  as  well  as 
delight  them.  We  may  reckon  up  pretty  exactly  a 
man's  advantages  and  defects  as  an  artist ;  these  he  has 
in  common  with  others,  and  they  are  to  be  measured 
by  a  recognized  standard  ;  but  there  is  something  in  his 
genius  that  is  incalculable.  It  would  be  hard  to  define 
the  causes  of  the  difference  of  impression  made  upon 
us  respectively  by  two  such  men  as  ^Eschylus  and 
Euripides,  but  we  feel  profoundly  that  the  latter,  though 
in  some  respects  a  better  dramatist,  was  an  infinitely- 
lighter  weight.  ^Eschylus  stirs  something  in  us  far 
deeper  than  the  sources  of  mere  pleasurable  excitement. 
The  man  behind  the  verse  is  far  greater  than  the  verse 
itself,  and  the  impulse  he  gives  to  what  is  deepest  and 
most  sacred  in  us,  though  we  cannot  always  explain  it, 
is  none  the  less  real  and  lasting.  Some  men  always 
seem  to  remain  outside  their  work  ;  others  make  their 
individuality  felt  in  every  part  of  it ;  their  very  life 
vibrates  in  every  verse,  and  we  do  not  wonder  that  it 
has  "  made  them  lean  for  many  years."  The  virtue 


DANTE.  123 

that  has  gone  out  of  them  abides  in  what  they  do. 
The  book  such  a  man  makes  is  indeed,  as  Milton  called 
it,  "the  precious  lifeblood  of  a  master  spirit."  Theirs 
is  a  true  immortality,  for  it  is  their  soul,  and  not  their 
talent,  that  survives  in  their  work.  Dante's  concise  forth- 
rightness  of  phrase,  which  to  that  of  most  other  poets 
is  as  a  stab  *  to  a  blow  with  a  cudgel,  the  vigor  of  his 
thought,  the  beauty  of  his  images,  the  refinement  of  his 
conception  of  spiritual  things,  are  marvellous  if  we  com 
pare  him  with  his  age  and  its  best  achievement.  But 
it  is  for  his  power  of  inspiring  and  sustaining,  it  is 
because  they  find  in  him  a  spur  to  noble  aims,  a  secure 
refuge  in  that  defeat  which  the  present  always  seems, 
that  they  prize  Dante  who  know  and  love  him  best. 
He  is  not  merely  a  great  poet,  but  an  influence,  part  of 
the  soul's  resources  in  time  of  trouble.  From  him  she 
learns  that,  "  married  to  the  truth,  she  is  a  mistress, 
but  otherwise  a  slave  shut  out  of  all  liberty."  f 

All  great  poets  have  their  message  to  deliver  us,  from 
something  higher  than  they.  We  venture  on  no  un 
worthy  comparison  between  him  who  reveals  to  us  the 
beauty  of  this  world's  love  and  the  grandeur  of  this 
world's  passion  and  him  who  shows  that  love  of  God  is 
the  fruit  whereof  all  other  loves  are  but  the  beautiful 
and  fleeting  blossom,  that  the  passions  are  yet  sublimer 
objects  of  contemplation,  when,  subdued  by  the  will, 
they  become  patience  in  suffering  and  perseverance  in 
the  upward  path.  But  we  cannot  help  thinking  that 
if  Shakespeare  be  the  most  comprehensive  intellect,  so 
Dante  is  the  highest  spiritual  nature  that  has  expressed 
itself  in  rhythmical  form.  Had  he  merely  made  us  feel 

*  To  the  "  bestiality"  of  certain  arguments  Dante  says,  "one  would 
wish  to  reply,  not  with  words,  but  with  a  knife."  (Convito,  Tr.  IV. 
c.  14.) 

t  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  2. 


124  DANTE. 

how  petty  the  ambitions,  sorrows,  and  vexations  of 
earth  appear  when  looked  down  on  from  the  heights  of 
our  own  character  and  the  seclusion  of  our  own  genius, 
or  from  the  region  where  we  commune  with  God,  he 
had  done  much : 

"  I  with  ray  sight  returned  through  one  and  all 
^he  sevenfold  spheres,  and  I  beheld  this  globe 
Such  that  I  smiled  at  its  ignoble  semblance."  * 

But  he  has  done  far  more  ;  he  has  shown  us  the  way  by 
which  that  country  far  beyond  the  stars  may  be  reached, 
may  become  the  habitual  dwelling-place  and  fortress  of 
our  nature,  instead  of  being  the  object  of  its  vague 
aspiration  in  moments  of  indolence.  At  the  Round 
Table  of  King  Arthur  there  was  left  always  one  seat 
empty  for  him  who  should  accomplish  the  adventure  of 
the  Holy  Grail.  It  was  called  the  perilous  seat  because 
of  the  dangers  he  must  encounter  who  would  win  it. 
In  the  company  of  the  epic  poets  there  was  a  place  left 
for  whoever  should  embody  the  Christian  idea  of  a  tri 
umphant  life,  outwardly  all  defeat,  inwardly  victorious, 
who  should  make  us  partakers  of  that  cup  of  sorrow  in 
which  all  are  communicants  with  Christ.  He  who 
should  do  this  would  indeed  achieve  the  perilous  seat, 
for  he  must  combine  poesy  with  doctrine  in  such  cun 
ning  wise  that  the  one  lose  not  its  beauty  nor  the  other 
its  severity,  —  and  Dante  has  done  it.  As  he  takes 
possession  of  it  we  seem  to  hear  the  cry  he  himself 
heard  when  Virgil  rejoined  the  company  of  great 
singers, 

"  All  honor  to  the  loftiest  of  poets !  " 

*  Paradiso,  XXII.  132-135  ;  Ib.,  XXVII.  110. 


SPENSER. 


CHAUCER  had  been  in  his  grave  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ere  England  had  secreted  choice  material  enough 
for  the  making  of  another  great  poet.  The  nature  of 
men  living  together  in  societies,  as  of  the  individual 
man,  seems  to  have  its  periodic  ebbs  and  floods,  its 
oscillations  between  the  ideal  and  the  matter-of-fact,  so 
that  the  doubtful  boundary  line  of  shore  between  them 
is  in  one  generation  a  hard  sandy  actuality  strewn  only 
with  such  remembrances  of  beauty  as  a  dead  sea-moss 
here  and  there,  and  in  the  next  is  whelmed  with  those 
lacelike  curves  of  ever-gaining,  ever-receding  foam,  and 
that  dance  of  joyous  spray  which  for  a  moment  catches 
and  holds  the  sunshine. 

From  the  two  centuries  between  1400  and  1600  the 
indefatigable  Kitson  in  his  Bibliographia  Poetica  has 
made  us  a  catalogue  of  some  six  hundred  English  poets, 
or,  more  properly,  verse-makers.  Ninety-nine  in  a  hun 
dred  of  them  are  mere  names,  most  of  them  no  more 
than  shadows  of  names,  some  of  them  mere  initials. 
Nor  can  it  be  said  of  them  that  their  works  have  per 
ished  because  they  were  written  in  an  obsolete  dialect ; 
for  it  is  the  poem  that  keeps  the  language  alive,  and 
not  the  language  that  buoys  up  the  poem.  The  revival 
of  letters,  as  it  is  called,  was  at  first  the  revival  of 
ancient  letters,  which,  while  it  made  men  pedants,  could 


126  SPENSEK. 

do  very  little  toward  making  them  poets,  much  less 
toward  making  them  original  writers.  .There  was  noth 
ing  left  of  the  freshness,  vivacity,  invention,  and  careless 
faith  in  the  present  which  make  many  of  the  productions 
of  the  Norman  Trouveres  delightfu}  reading  even  now. 
The  whole  of  Europe  during  the  fifteenth  century  pro 
duced  no  book  which  has  continued  readable,  or  has 
become  in  any  sense  of  the  word  a  classic.  I  do  not 
mean  that  that  century  has  left  us  no  illustrious  names, 
that  it  was  not  enriched  with  some  august  intellects 
who  kept  alive  the  apostolic  succession  of  thought  and 
speculation,  who  passed  along  the  still  unextinguished 
torch  of  intelligence,  the  lampada  vitce,  to  those  who 
came  after  them.  But  a  classic  is  properly  a  book  which 
maintains  itself  by  virtue  of  that  happy  coalescence  of 
matter  and  style,  that  innate  and  exquisite  sympathy 
between  the  thought  that  gives  life  and  the  form  that 
consents  to  every  mood  of  grace  and  dignity,  which  can 
be  simple  without  being  vulgar,  elevated  without  being 
distant,  and  which  is  something  neither  ancient  nor 
modern,  always  new  and  incapable  of  growing  old.  It 
is  not  his  Latin  which  makes  Horace  cosmopolitan,  nor 
can  Beranger's  French  prevent  his  becoming  so.  No 
hedge  of  language  however  thorny,  no  dragon-coil  of 
centuries,  will  keep  men  away  from  these  true  apples 
of  the  Hesperides  if  once  they  have  caught  sight  or 
scent  of  them.  If  poems  die,  it  is  because  there  was 
never  true  life  in  them,  that  is,  that  true  poetic  vitality 
which  no  depth  of  thought,  no  airiness  of  fancy,  no  sin 
cerity  of  feeling,  can  singly  communicate,  but  which 
leaps  throbbing  at  touch  of  that  shaping  faculty  the 
imagination.  Take  Aristotle's  ethics,  the  scholastic 
philosophy,  the  theology  of  Aquinas,  the  Ptolemaic 
system  of  astronomy,  the  small  politics  of  a  provincial 
city  of  the  Middle  Ages,  mix  in  at  will  Grecian,  Roman, 


SPENSER.  127 

and  Christian  mythology,  and  tell  me  what  chance  there 
is  to  make  an  immortal  poem  of  such  an  incongruous 
mixture.  Can  these  dry  bones  live  1  Yes,  Dante  can 
create  such  a  soul  under  these  ribs  of  death  that  one 
hundred  and  fifty  editions  of  his  poem  shall  be  called 
for  in  these  last  sixty  years,  the  first  half  of  the  sixth 
century  since  his  death.  Accordingly  I  am  apt  to  be 
lieve  that  the  complaints  one  sometimes  hears  of  the 
neglect  of  our  older  literature  are  the  regrets  of  archae 
ologists  rather  than  of  critics.  One  does  not  need  to 
advertise  the  squirrels  where  the  nut-trees  are,  nor  could 
any  amount  of  lecturing  persuade  them  to  spend  their 
teeth  on  a  hollow  nut. 

On  the  whole,  the  Scottish  poetry  of  the  fifteenth 
century  has  more  meat  in  it  than  the  English,  but  this 
is  to  say  very  little.  Where  it  is  meant  to  be  serious 
and  lofty  it  falls  into  the  same  vices  of  unreality  and 
allegory  which  were  the  fashion  of  the  day,  and  which 
there  are  some  patriots  so  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made  as  to  relish.  Stripped  of  the  archaisms  (that  turn 
every  y  to  a  meaningless  z,  spell  which  quhilk,  shake 
sc/iaik,  bugle  boivgill,  powder  puldir,  and  will  not  let  us 
simply  whistle  till  we  have  puckered  our  mouths  to 
quhissill)  in  which  the  Scottish  antiquaries  love  to  keep 
it  disguised,  —  as  if  it  were  nearer  to  poetry  the  further 
it  got  from  all  human  recognition  and  sympathy,  — 
stripped  of  these,  there  is  little  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  contemporary  verse-mongering  south  of  the  Tweed. 
Their  compositions  are  generally  as  stiff  and  artificial 
as  a  trellis,  in  striking  contrast  with  the  popular  ballad- 
poetry  of  Scotland  (some  of  which  possibly  falls  within 
this  period,  though  most  of  it  is  later),  which  clambers, 
lawlessly  if  you  will,  but  at  least  freely  and  simply, 
twining  the  bare  stem  of  old  tradition  with  graceful 
sentiment  and  lively  natural  sympathies.  I  find  a  few 


128  SPENSER. 

sweet  and  flowing  verses  in  Dunbar's  "Merle  and  Night 
ingale,"  —  indeed  one  whole  stanza  that  has  always 
seemed  exquisite  to  me.  It  is  this  :  — 

"Ne'er  sweeter  noise  was  heard  by  living  man 
Than  made  this  merry,  gentle  nightingale. 
Her  sound  went  with  the  river  as  it  ran 
Out  through  the  fresh  and  flourished  lusty  vale ; 
O  merle,  quoth  she,  0  fool,  leave  off  thy  tale, 
For  in  thy  song  good  teaching  there  is  none, 
For  both  are  lost,  — the  time  and  the  travail 
Of  every  love  but  upon  God  alone." 

But  except  this  lucky  poem,  I  find  little  else  in  the 
serious  verses  of  Dunbar  that  does  not  seem  to  me 
tedious  and  pedantic.  I  dare  say  a  few  more  lines  might 
be  found  scattered  here  and  there,  but  I  hold  it  a  sheer 
waste  of  time  to  hunt  after  these  thin  needles  of  wit 
buried  in  -unwieldy  haystacks  of  verse.  If  that  be 
genius,  the  less  we  have  of  it  the  better.  His  "  Dance 
of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,"  over  which  the  excellent 
Lord  Hailes  went  into  raptures,  is  wanting  in  every 
thing  but  coarseness;  and  if  his  invention  dance  at  all, 
it  is  like  a  galley-slave  in  chains  under  the  lash.  It 
would  be  well  for  us  if  the  sins  themselves  were  indeed 
such  wretched  bugaboos  as  he  has  painted  for  us.  What 
he  means  for  humor  is  but  the  dullest  vulgarity ;  his 
satire  would  be  Billingsgate  if  it  could,  and,  failing, 
becomes  a  mere  offence  in  the  nostrils,  for  it  takes  a 
great  deal  of  salt  to  keep  scurrility  sweet.  Mr.  Sibbald, 
in  his  "Chronicle  of  Scottish  Poetry,"  has  admiringly 
preserved  more  than  enough  of  it,  and  seems  to  find  a 
sort  of  national  savor  therein,  such  as  delights  his  coun 
trymen  in  a  haggis,  or  the  German  in  his  sauer-kraut. 
The  uninitiated  foreigner  puts  his  handkerchief  to  his 
nose,  wonders,  and  gets  out  of  the  way  as  soon  as  he 
civilly  can.  Barbour's  "  Brus,"  if  not  precisely  a  poem, 
has  passages  whose  simple  tenderness  raises  them  to 


SPENSER.  129 

that  level.  That  on  Freedom  is  familiar.*  But  its 
highest  merit  is  the  natural  and  ^unstrained  tone  of 
manly  courage  in  it,  the  easy  and  familiar  way  in  which 
Barbour  always  takes  chivalrous  conduct  as  a  matter 
of  course,  as  if  heroism  were  the  least  you  could  ask  of 
any  man.  I  modernize  a  few  verses  to  show  what  I 
mean.  When  the  King  of  England  turns  to  fly  from 
the  battle  of  Bannockburn  (and  Barbour  with  his  usual 
generosity  tells  us  he  has  heard  that  Sir  Aymer  de 
Valence  led  him  away  by  the  bridle-rein  against  his 
will),  Sir  Giles  d'Argente 

"  Saw  the  king  thus  and  his  menie 
Shape  them  to  flee  so  speedily, 
He  came  right  to  the  king  in  hy  [hastily] 
And  said,  '  Sir,  since  that  is  so 
That  ye  thus  gate  your  gate  will  go, 
Have  ye  good-day,  for  back  will  I : 
Yet  never  fled  I  certainly, 
And  I  choose  here  to  bide  and  die 
Than  to  live  shamefully  and  fly.' " 

The  "  Brus  "  is  in  many  ways  the  best  rhymed  chronicle 
ever  written.  It  is  national  in  a  high  and  generous  way, 
but  I  confess  I  have  little  faith  in  that  quality  in  liter 
ature  which  is  commonly  called  nationality,  —  a  kind 
of  praise  seldom  given  where  there  is  anything  better 
to  be  said.  Literature  that  loses  its  meaning,  or  the 
best  part  of  it,  when  it  gets  beyond  sight  of  the  parish 
steeple,  is  not  what  I  understand  by  literature.  To 
tell  you  when  you  cannot  fully  taste  a  book  that  it  is 
because  it  is  so  thoroughly  national,  is  to  condemn  the 
book.  To  say  it  of  a  poem  is  even  worse,  for  it  is  to 
say  that  what  should  be  true  of  the  whole  compass  of 

*  Though  always  misapplied  in  quotation,  as  if  he  had  used  the 
word  in  that  generalized  meaning  which  is  common  now,  but  which 
could  not  without  an  impossible  anachronism  have  been  present  to  his 
mind.  He  meant  merely  freedom  from  prison. 

6*  I 


130  SPENSER. 

human  nature  is  true  only  to  some  north-and-by-east- 
half-east  point  of  it.  I  can  understand  the  nationality 
of  Firdusi  when,  looking  sadly  back  to  the  former  glories 
of  his  country,  he  tells  us  that  "the  nightingale  still 
sings  old  Persian  " ;  -I  can  understand  the  nationality 
of  Burns  when  he  turns  his  plough  aside  to  spare  the 
rough  burr  thistle,  and  hopes  he  may  write  a  song  or 
two  for  dear  auld  Scotia's  sake.  That  sort  of  national 
ity  belongs  to  a  country  of  which  we  are  all  citizens,  — 
that  country  of  the  heart  which  has  no  boundaries  laid 
down  on  the  map.  All  great  poetry  must  smack  of  the 
soil,  for  it  must  be  rooted  in  it,  must  suck  life  and  sub 
stance  from  it,  but  it  must  do  so  with  the  aspiring  in 
stinct  of  the  pine  that  climbs  forever  toward  diviner 
air,  and  not  in  the  grovelling  fashion  of  the  potato. 
Any  verse  that  makes  you  and  me  foreigners  is  not  only 
not  great  poetry,  but  no  poetry  at  all.  Dunbar's  works 
were  disinterred  and  edited  some  thirty  years  ago  by 
Mr.  Laing,  and  whoso  is  national  enough  to  like  thistles 
may  browse  there  to  his  heart's  content.  I  am  inclined 
for  other  pasture,  having  long  ago  satisfied  myself  by  a 
good  deal  of  dogged  reading  that  every  generation  is 
sure  of  its  own  share  of  bores  without  borrowing  from 
the  past. 

A  little  later  came  Gawain  Douglas,  whose  translation 
of  the  ^Eneid  is  linguistically  valuable,  and  whose  intro 
ductions  to  the  seventh  and  twelfth  books  —  the  one 
describing  winter  and  the  other  May  —  have  been  safely 
praised,  they  are  so  hard  to  read.  There  is  certainly 
some  poetic  feeling  in  them,  and  the  welcome  to  the 
sun  comes  as  near  enthusiasm  as  is  possible  for  a  plough 
man,  with  a  good  steady  yoke  of  oxen,  who  lays  over 
one  furrow  of  verse,  and  then  turns  about  to  lay  the 
next  as  cleverly  alongside  it  as  he  can.  But  it  is  a 
wrong  done  to  good  taste  to  hold  up  this  item  kind  of 


SPENSEK.  131 

description  any  longer  as  deserving  any  other  credit 
than  that  of  a  good  memory.  It  is  a  mere  bill  of  par 
cels,  a  post-mortem  inventory  of  nature,  where  imagina 
tion  is  not  merely  not  called  for,  but  would  be  out  of 
place.  Why,  a  recipe  in  the  cookery-book  is  as  much 
like  a  good  dinner  as  this  kind  of  stuff  is  like  true 
word-painting.  The  poet  with  a  real  eye  in  his  head 
does  not  give  us  everything,  but  only  the  best  of  every 
thing.  He  selects,  he  combines,  or  else  gives  what  is 
characteristic  only ;  while  the  false  style  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking  seems  to  be  as  glad  to  get  a  pack  of 
impertinences  on  its  shoulders  as  Christian  in  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress  was  to  be  rid  of  his.  One  strong 
verse  that  can  hold  itself  upright  (as  the  French  critic 
Rivarol  said  of  Dante)  with  the  bare  help  of  the  sub 
stantive  and  verb,  is  worth  acres  of  this  dead  cord-wood 
piled  stick  on  stick,  a  boundless  continuity  of  dryness. 
I  would  rather  have  written  that  half-stanza  of  Long 
fellow's,  in  the  "Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,"  of  the  "billow 
that  swept  her  crew  like  icicles  from  her  deck,"  than  all 
Gawain  Douglas's  tedious  enumeration  of  meteorological 
phenomena  put  together.  A  real  landscape  is  never 
tiresome ;  it  never  presents  itself  to  us  as  a  disjointed 
succession  of  isolated  particulars;  we  take  it  in  with 
one  sweep  of  the  eye,  —  its  light,  its  shadow,  its  melt 
ing  gradations  of  distance  :  we  do  not  say  it  is  this,  it 
is  that,  and  the  other ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  if 
a  description  in  poetry  is  tiresome  there  is  a  grievous 
mistake  somewhere.  All  the  pictorial  adjectives  in  the 
dictionary  will  not  bring  it  a  hair's-breadth  nearer  to 
truth  and  nature.  The  fact  is  that  what  we  see  is  in 
the  mind  to  a  greater  degree  than  we  are  commonly 
aware.  As  Coleridge  says,  — 

"  0  lady,  we  receive  but  what  we  give, 
And  in  our  life  alone  doth  Nature  live  ! " 


•132  SPENSEK. 

I  have  made  the  unfortunate  Dunbar  the  text  for  a 
diatribe  on  the  subject  of  descriptive  poetry,  because  I 
find  that  this  old  ghost  is  not  laid  yet,  but  comes  back 
like  a  vampire  to  suck  the  life  out  of  a  true  enjoyment 
of  poetry,  —  and  the  medicine  by  which  vampires  were 
cured  was  to  unbury  them,  drive  a  stake  through  them, 
and  get  them  under  ground  again  with  all  despatch. 
The  first  duty  of  the  Muse  is  to  be  delightful,  and  it  is 
an  injury  done  to  all  of  us  when  we  are  put  in  the  wrong 
by  a  kind  of  statutory  affirmation  on  the  part  of  the 
critics  of  something  to  which  our  judgment  will  not  con 
sent,  and  from  which  our  taste  revolts.  A  collection  of 
poets  is  commonly  made  up,  nine  parts  in  ten,  of  this 
perfunctory  verse-making,  and  I  never  look  at  one  with 
out  regretting  that  we  have  lost  that  excellent  Latin 
phrase,  Corpus  poetarum.  In  fancy  I  always  read  it  on 
the  backs  of  the  volumes, — a  body  of  poets,  indeed,  with 
scarce  one  soul  to  a  hundred  of  them. 

One  genuine  English  poet  illustrated  the  early  years  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  — John  Skelton.  He  had  vivacity, 
fancy,  humor,  and  originality.  Gleams  of  the  truest  poet 
ical  sensibility  alternate  in  him  with  an  almost  brutal 
coarseness.  He  was  truly  Rabelaisian  before  Rabelais. 
But  there  is  a  freedom  and  hilarity  in  much  of  his 
writing  that  gives  it  a  singular  attraction.  A  breath  of 
cheerfulness  runs  along  the  slender  stream  of  his  verse, 
under  which  it  seems  to  ripple  and  crinkle,  catching  and 
casting  back  the  sunshine  like  a  stream  blown  on  by 
clear  western  winds. 

But  Skelton  was  an  exceptional  blossom  of  autumn. 
A  long  and  dreary  winter  follows.  Surrey,  who  brought 
back  with  him  from  Italy  the  blank-verse  not  long  before 
introduced  by  Trissino,  is  to  some  extent  another  excep 
tion.  He  had  the  sentiment  of  nature  and  unhackneyed 
feeling,  but  he  has  no  mastery  of  verse,  nor  any  elegance 


SPENSER.  133 

of  diction.  We  have  Gascoyne,  Surrey,  Wyatt,  stiff,  pe 
dantic,  artificial,  systematic  as  a  country  cemetery,  and, 
worst  of  all,  the  whole  time  desperately  in  love.  Every 
verse  is  as  flat,  thin,  and  regular  as  a  lath,  and  their 
poems  are  nothing  more  than  bundles  of  such  tied  trimly 
together.  They  are  said  to  have  refined  our  language. 
Let  us  devoutly  hope  they  did,  for  it  would  be  pleasant 
to  be  grateful  to  them  for  something.  But  I  fear  it 
was  not  so,  for  only  genius  can  do  that ;  and  Sternhold 
and  Hopkins  are  inspired  men  in  comparison  with  them. 
For  Sternhold  was  at  least  the  author  of  two  noble 

stanzas : — 

"  The  Lord  descended  from  above 

And  bowed  the  heavens  high, 

And  underneath  his  feet  he  cast 

The  darkness  of  the  sky  ; 
On  cherubs  and  on  cherubims 

Full  royally  he  rode, 
And  on  the  wings  of  all  the  winds 
Came  flying  all  abroad." 

But  Gascoyne  and  the  rest  did  nothing  more  than  put 
the  worst  school  of  Italian  love  poetry  into  an  awkward 
English  dress.  The  Italian  proverb  says,  "  Inglese 
italianizzato,  Diavolo  incarnato,"  that  an  Englishman 
Italianized  is  the  very  devil  incarnate,  and  one  feels  the 
truth  of  it  here.  The  very  titles  of  their  poems  set  one 
yawning,  and  their  wit  is  the  cause  of  the  dulness  that 
is  in  other  men.  "  The  lover,  deceived  by  his  love,  re- 
penteth  him  of  the  true  love  he  bare  her."  As  thus  :  — 

"  Where  I  sought  heaven  there  found  I  hap  ; 

From  danger  unto  death, 
Much  like  the  mouse  that  treads  the  trap 

In  hope  to  find  her  food, 
And  bites  the  bread  that  stops  her  breath,  — 

So  in  like  case  I  stood." 

"  The  lover,  accusing  his  love  for  her  unfaithfulness, 
proposeth  to  live  in  liberty."  He  says  :  — 


134  SPENSER. 

"  But  I  am  like  the  beaten  fowl 
That  from  the  net  escaped, 
And  thou  art  like  the  ravening  owl 
That  all  the  night  hath  waked." 

And  yet  at  the  very  time  these  men  were  writing 
there  were  simple  ballad-writers  who  could  have  set 
them  an  example  of  simplicity,  force,  and  grandeur. 
Compare  the  futile  efforts  of  these  poetasters  to  kindle 
themselves  by  a  painted  flame,  and  to  be  pathetic  over 
the  lay  figure  of  a  mistress,  with  the  wild  vigor  and 
almost  fierce  sincerity  of  the  "  Twa  Corbies":  — 

"  As  I  was  walking  all  alone 
I  heard  twa  corbies  making  a  moan. 
The  one  unto  the  other  did  say, 
Where  shall  we  gang  dine  to-day  ? 
In  beyond  that  old  turf  dyke 
I  wot  there  lies  a  new-slain  knight ; 
And  naebody  kens  that  he  lies  there 
But  his  hawk  and  his  hound  and  his  lady  fair. 
His  hound  is  to  the  hunting  gone, 
His  hawk  to  fetch  the  wild  fowl  home, 
His  lady  has  ta'en  another  mate, 
So  we  may  make  our  dinner  sweet. 
O'er  his  white  bones  as  they  lie  bare 
The  wind  shall  blow  forevermair." 

There  was  a  lesson  in  rhetoric  for  our  worthy  friends, 
could  they  have  understood  it.  But  they  were  as  much 
afraid  of  an  attack  of  nature  as  of  the  plague. 

Such  was  the  poetical  inheritance  of  style  and  diction 
into  which  Spenser  was  born,  and  which  he  did  more 
than  any  one  else  to  redeem  from  the  leaden  gripe  of 
vulgar  and  pedantic  conceit.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  born 
the  year  after  him,  with  a  keener  critical  instinct,  and 
a  taste  earlier  emancipated  than  his  own,  would  have 
been,  had  he  lived  longer,  perhaps  even  more  directly 
influential  in  educating  the  taste  and  refining  the  vocab 
ulary  of  his  contemporaries  and  immediate  successors. 
The  better  of  his  pastoral  poems  in  the  "  Arcadia  "  are, 


SPENSER.  135 

in  my  judgment,  more  simple,  natural,  and,  above  all, 
more  pathetic  than  those  of  Spenser,  who  sometimes 
strains  the  shepherd's  pipe  with  a  blast  that  would  bet 
ter  suit  the  trumpet.  Sidney  had  the  good  sense  to 
feel  that  it  was  unsophisticated  sentiment  rather  than 
rusticity  of  phrase  that  befitted  such  themes.*  He  rec 
ognized  the  distinction  between  simplicity  and  vulgarity, 
which  Wordsworth  was  so  long  in  finding  out,  and  seems 
to  have  divined  the  fact  that  there  is  but  one  kind  of 
English  that  is  always  appropriate  and  never  obsolete, 
namely,  the  very  best.t  With  the  single  exception  of 
Thomas  Campion,  his  experiments  in  adapting  classical 
metres  to  English  verse  are  more  successful  than  those 
of  his  contemporaries.  Some  of  his  elegiacs  are  not  un 
grateful  to  the  ear,  and  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that 
Coleridge  borrowed  from  his  eclogue  of  Strephon  and 
Klaius  the  pleasing  movement  of  his  own  Catullian 
Hendecasyllabics.  Spenser,  perhaps  out  of  deference  to 
Sidney,  also  tried  his  hand  at  English  hexameters,  the 
introduction  of  which  was  claimed  by  his  friend  Gabriel 
Harvey,  who  thereby  assured  to  himself  an  immortality 
of  grateful  remembrance.  But  the  result  was  a  series 
of  jolts  and  jars,  proving  that  the  language  had  run  off 
the  track.  He  seems  to  have  been  half  conscious  of  it 
himself,  and  there  is  a  gleam  of  mischief  in  what  he 
writes  to  Harvey  :  "I  like  your  late  English  hexameter 
so  exceedingly  well  that  I  also  enure  my  pen  sometime 
in  that  kind,  which  I  find  indeed,  as  I  have  often  heard 

*  In  his  "Defence  of  Poesy"  he  condemns  the  archaisms  and  pro 
vincialisms  of  the  "Shepherd's  Calendar." 

t  "  There  is,  as  yoii  must  have  heard  Wordsworth  point  out,  a  lan 
guage  of  pure,  intelligible  English,  which  was  spoken  in  Chaucer's 
time,  and  is  spoken  in  ours:  equally  understood  then  and  now;  and 
of  which  the  Bible  is  the  written  and  permanent  standard,  as  it  has 
undoubtedly  been  the  great  means  of  preserving  it."  (Southey's  Life 
and  Correspondence,  HI.  193,  194.) 


136  SPENSER. 

you  defend  in  word,  neither  so  hard  nor  so  harsh  but 
that  it  will  easily  yield  itself  to  our  mother-tongue. 
For  the  only  or  chiefest  hardness,  which  seemeth,  is  in 
the  accent,  which  sometime  gapeth,  and,  as  it  were, 
yawneth  ill-favoredly,  coming  short  of  that  it  should, 
and  sometime  exceeding  the  measure  of  the  number,  as 
in  Carpenter ;  the  middle  syllable  being  used  short  in 
speech,  when  it  shall  be  read  long  in  verse,  seemeth 
like  a  lame  gosling  that  draweth  one  leg  after  her ;  and 
Heaven  being  used  short  as  one  syllable,  when  it  is  in 
verse  stretched  out  with  a  diastole,  is  like  a  lame  dog 
that  holds  up  one  leg."*  It  is  almost  inconceivable 
that  Spenser's  hexameters  should  have  been  written  by 
the  man  who  was  so  soon  to  teach  his  native  language 
how  to  soar  and  sing,  and  to  give  a  fuller  sail  to  Eng 
lish  verse. 

One  of  the  most  striking  facts  in  our  literary  history 
is  the  pre-eminence  at  once  so  frankly  and  unanimously 
conceded  to  Spenser  by  his  contemporaries.  At  first, 
it  is  true,  he  had  not  many  rivals.  Before  the  "  Faery 
Queen "  two  long  poems  were  printed  and  popular,  — 
the  "  Mirror  for  Magistrates "  and  Warner's  "  Albion's 
England," — and  not  long  after  it  came  the  "Polyol- 
bion"  of  Drayton  and  the  "Civil  Wars"  of  Daniel. 
This  was  the  period  of  the  saurians  in  English  poetry, 
interminable  poems,  book  after  book  and  canto  after 
canto,  like  far-stretching  vertebrae,  that  at  first  sight 
would  seem  to  have  rendered  earth  unfit  for  the  habi- 

*  Nash,  who  has  far  better  claims  than  Swift  to  be  called  the  Eng 
lish  Rabelais,  thus  at  once  describes  and  parodies  Harvey's  hexame 
ters  in  prose,  "  that  drunken,  staggering  kind  of  verse,  which  is  all 
up  hill  and  down  hill,  like  the  way  betwixt  Stamford  and  Beechfield, 
and  goes  like  a  horse  plunging  through  the  mire  in  the  deep  of  winter, 
now  soused  up  to  the  saddle,  and  straight  aloft  on  his  tiptoes."  It 
was  a  happy  thought  to  satirize  (in  this  inverted  way)  prose  written 
in  the  form  of  verse. 


SPENSER.  137 

tation  of  man.  They  most  of  them  sleep  well  now,  as 
once  they  made  their  readers  sleep,  and  their  huge  re 
mains  lie  embedded  in  the  deep  morasses  of  Chambers 
and  Anderson.  We  wonder  at  the  length  of  face  and 
general  atrabilious  look  that  mark  the  portraits  of  the 
men  of  that  generation,  but  it  is  no  marvel  when 
even  their  relaxations  were  such  downright  hard  work. 
Fathers  when  their  day  on  earth  was  up  must  have 
folded  down  the  leaf  and  left  the  task  to  be  finished  by 
their  sons,  —  a  dreary  inheritance.  Yet  both  Drayton 
and  Daniel  are  fine  poets,  though  both  of  them  in  their 
most  elaborate  works  made  shipwreck  of  their  genius 
on  the  shoal  of  a  bad  subject.  Neither  of  them  could 
make  poetry  coalesce  with  gazetteering  or  chronicle- 
making.  It  was  like  trying  to  put  a  declaration  of 
love  into  the  forms  of  a  declaration  in  trover.  The 
"  Polyolbion  "  is  nothing  less  than  a  versified  gazetteer 
of  England  and  Wales,  —  fortunately  Scotland  was  not 
yet  annexed,  or  the  poem  would  have  been  even  longer, 
and  already  it  is  the  plesiosaurus  of  verse.  Mountains, 
rivers,  and  even  marshes  are  personified,  to  narrate  his 
torical  episodes,  or  to  give  us  geographical  lectures. 
There  are  two  fine  verses  in  the  seventh  book,  where, 
speaking  of  the  cutting  down  some  noble  woods,  he 
says,  — 

"  Their  trunks  like  aged  folk  now  bare  and  naked  stand, 
As  for  revenge  to  heaven  each  held  a  withered  hand  "; 

and  there  is  a  passage  about  the  sea  in  the  twentieth 
book  that  comes  near  being  fine;  but  the  far  greater 
part  is  mere  joiner- work.  Consider  the  life  of  man, 
that  we  flee  away  as  a  shadow,  that  our  days  are  as  a 
post,  and  then  think  whether  we  can  afford  to  honor 
such*  a  draft  upon  our  time  as  is  implied  in  these  thirty 
books  all  in  alexandrines !  Even  the  laborious  Selden, 
who  wrote  annotations  on  it,  sometimes  more  entertain- 


138  SPENSER. 

ing  than  the  text,  gave  out  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
book.  Yet  Drayton  could  write  well,  and  had  an  agree 
able  lightsomeness  of  fancy,  as  his  "Nymphidia"  proves. 
His  poem  "To  the  Cambro-Britons  on  their  Harp"  is 
full  of  vigor ;  it  runs,  it  leaps,  clashing  its  verses  like 
swords  upon  bucklers,  and  moves  the  pulse  to  a  charge. 
Daniel  was  in  all"  respects  a  man  of  finer  mould.  He 
did  indeed  refine  our  tongue,  and  deserved  the  praise 
his  contemporaries  concur  in  giving  him  of  being  "  well- 
languaged."*  Writing  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago, 
he  stands  in  no  need  of  a  glossary,  and  I  have  noted 
scarce  a  dozen  words,  and  not  more  turns  of  phrase,  in 
his  works,  that  have  become  obsolete.  This  certainly 
indicates  both  remarkable  taste  and  equally  remarkable 
judgment.  There  is  an  equable  dignity  in  his  thought 
and  sentiment  such  as  we  rarely  meet.  His  best  poems 
always  remind  me  of  a  table-land,  where,  because  all  is 
so  level,  we  are  apt  to  forget  on  how  lofty  a  plane  we 
are  standing.  I  think  his  "  Musophilus  "  the  best  poem 
of  its  kind  in  the  language.  The  reflections  are  natural, 
the  expression  condensed,  the  thought  weighty,  and  the 
language  worthy  of  it.  But  he  also  wasted  himself  on 
an  historical  poem,  in  which  the  characters  were  inca 
pable  of  that  remoteness  from  ordinary  associations 
which  is  essential  to  the  ideal.  Not  that  we  can  escape 
into  the  ideal  by  merely  emigrating  into  the  past  or  the 
unfamiliar.  As  in  the  German  legend  the  little  black 
Kobold  of  prose  that  haunts  us  in  the  present  will  seat 

*  Edmund  Bolton  in  his  Hypercritica  says,  "  The  works  of  Sam 
Daniel  contained  somewhat  a  flat,  but  yet  withal  a  very  pure  and 
copious  English,  and  words  as  warrantable  as  any  man's,  and  fitter 
perhaps  for  prose  than  measure."  I  have  italicized  his  second  thought, 
which  chimes  curiously  with  the  feeling  Daniel  leaves  in  the  mind. 
(See  Haslewood's  Ancient  Crit.  Essays,  Vol.  II.)  Wordsworth,  an 
excellent  judge,  much  admired  Daniel's  poem  to  the  Countess  of 
Cumberland. 


SPENSER.  139 

himself  on  the  first  load  of  furniture  when  we  under 
take  our  flitting,  if  the  magician  be  not  there  to  exorcise 
him.  No  man  can  jump  off  his  own  shadow,  nor,  for 
that  matter,  off  his  own  age,  and  it  is  very  likely  that 
Daniel  had  only  the  thinking  and  languaging  parts  of 
a  poet's  outfit,  without  the  higher  creative  gift  which 
alone  can  endow  his  conceptions  with  enduring  life  and 
with  an  interest  which  transcends  the  parish  limits  of 
his  generation.  In  the  prologue  to  his  "Masque  at 
Court "  he  has  unconsciously  defined  his  own  poetry :  — 

"  Wherein  no  wild,  no  rude,  no  antic  sport, 
But  tender  passions,  motions  soft  and  grave, 
The  still  spectator  must  expect  to  have." 

And  indeed  his  verse  does  not  snatch  you  away  from 
ordinary  associations  and  hurry  you  along  with  it  as  is 
the  wont  of  the  higher  kinds  of  poetry,  but  leaves  you, 
as  it  were,  upon  the  bank  watching  the  peaceful  current 
and  lulled  by  its  somewhat  monotonous  murmur.  His 
best-known  poem,  blunderingly  misprinted  in  all  the 
collections,  is  that  addressed  to  the  Countess  of  Cum 
berland.  It  is  an  amplification  of  Horace's  Integer  Vitce, 
and  when  we  compare  it  with  the  original  we  miss  the 
point,  the  compactness,  and  above  all  the  urbane  tone 
of  the  original.  It  is  very  fine  English,  but  it  is  the 
English  of  diplomacy  somehow,  and  is  never  downright 
this  or  that,  but  always  has  the  honor  to  be  so  or  so, 
with  sentiments  of  the  highest  consideration.  Yet  the 
praise  of  well-languaged,  since  it  implies  that  good  writ 
ing  then  as  now  demanded  choice  and  forethought,  is 
not  without  interest  for  those  who  would  classify  the 
elements  of  a  style  that  will  wear  and  hold  its  colors 
well.  His  dictiqn,  if  wanting  in  the  more  hardy  evi 
dences  of  muscle,  has  a  suppleness  and  spring  that  give 
proof  of  training  and  endurance.  His  "  Defence  of 
Rhyme,"  written  in  prose  (a  more  difficult  test  than 


140  SPENSER. 

verse),  has  a  passionate  eloquence  that  reminds  one  of 
Burke,  and  is  more  light-armed  and  modern  than  the 
prose  of  Milton  fifty  years  later.  For  us  Occidentals  he 
has  a  kindly  prophetic  word  :  — 

"And  who  in  time  knows  whither  we  may  vent 
The  treasure  of  our  tongue  ?  to  what  strange  shores 
The  gain  of  our  best  glory  may  be  sent 
To  enrich  unknowing  nations  with  our  stores  ? 
What  worlds  in  the  yet  unformed  Occident 
May  come  refined  with  accents  that  are  ours  ? " 

During  the  period  when  Spenser  was  getting  his 
artistic  training  a  great  change  was  going  on  in  our 
mother-tongue,  and  the  language  of  literature  was  dis 
engaging  itself  more  and  more  from  that  of  ordinary 
talk.  The  poets  of  Italy,  Spain,  and  France  began  to 
rain  influence  and  to  modify  and  refine  not  only  style 
but  vocabulary.  Men  were  discovering  new  worlds  in 
more  senses  than  one,  and  the  visionary  finger  of  expec 
tation  still  pointed  forward.  There  was,  as  we  learn 
from  contemporary  pamphlets,  very  much  the  same 
demand  for  a  national  literature  that  we  have  heard  in 
America.  This  demand  was  nobly  answered  in  the  next 
generation.  But  no  man  contributed  so  much  to  the 
transformation  of  style  and  language  as  Spenser ;  for  not 
only  did  he  deliberately  endeavor  at  reform,  but  by  the 
charm  of  his  diction,  the  novel  harmonies  of  his  verse, 
his  ideal  method  of  treatment,  and  the  splendor  of  his 
fancy,  he  made  the  new  manner  popular  and  fruitful. 
We  can  trace  in  Spenser's  poems  the  gradual  growth  of 
his  taste  through  experiment  and  failure  to  that  assured 
self-confidence  which  indicates  that  he  had  at  length 
found  out  the  true  bent  of  his  genius,  — that  happiest 
of  discoveries  (and  not  so  easy  as  it  might  seem)  which 
puts  a  man  in  undisturbed  possession  of  his  own  indi 
viduality.  Before  his  time  the  boundary  between  poetry 
and  prose  had  not  been  clearly  defined.  His  great  merit 


SPENSER.  141 

lies  not  only  in  the  ideal  treatment  with  which  he  glo 
rified  common  things  and  gilded  them  with  a  ray  of 
enthusiasm,  but  far  more  in  the  ideal  point  of  view 
which  he  first  revealed  to  his  countrymen.  He  at  first 
sought  for  that  remoteness,  which  is  implied  in  an  es 
cape  from  the  realism  of  daily  life,  in  the  pastoral,  — 
a  kind  of  writing  which,  oddly  enough,  from  its  original 
intention  as  a  protest  in  favor  of  naturalness,  and  of 
human  as  opposed  to  heroic  sentiments,  had  degenerated 
into  the  most  artificial  of  abstractions.  But  he  was  soon 
convinced  of  his  error,  and  was  not  long  in  choosing 
between  an  unreality  which  pretended  to  be  real  and 
those  everlasting  realities  of  the  mind  which  seem  un 
real  only  because  they  lie  beyond  the  horizon  of  the 
every-day  world  and  become  visible  only  when  the 
mirage  of  fantasy  lifts  them  up  and  hangs  them  in  an 
ideal  atmosphere.  As  in  the  old  fairy-tales,  the  task 
which  the  age  imposes  on  its  poet  is  to  weave  its  straw 
into  a  golden  tissue  ;  and  when  every  device  has  failed, 
in  comes  the  witch  Imagination,  and  with  a  touch  the 
miracle  is  achieved,  simple  as  miracles  always  are  after 
they  are  wrought. 

Spenser,  likfe  Chaucer  a  Londoner,  was  born  in  1553.* 
Nothing  is  known  of  his  parents,  except  that  the  name 
of  his  mother  was  Elizabeth  ;  but  he  was  of  gentle  birth, 
as  he  more  than  once  informs  us,  with  the  natural  sat 
isfaction  of  a  poor  man  of  genius  at  a  time  when  the 
business  talent  of  the  middle  class  was  opening  to  it  the 
door  of  prosperous  preferment.  In  1569  he  was  entered 

*  Mr.  Hales,  in  the  excellent  memoir  of  the  poet  prefixed  to  the 
Globe  edition  of  his  works,  puts  his  birth  a  year  earlier,  on  the 
strength  of  a  line  in  the  sixtieth  sonnet.  But  it  is  not  established 
that  this  sonnet  was  written  in  1593,  and  even  if  it  were,  a  sonnet  is 
not  upon  oath,  and  the  poet  would  prefer  the  round  number  forty, 
which  suited  the  measure  of  his  verse,  to  thirty-nine  or  forty-one, 
which  might  have'  been  truer  to  the  measure  of  his  days. 


142  SPENSER. 

as  a  sizar  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge,  and  in  due 
course  took  his  bachelor's  degree  in  1573,  and  his  mas 
ter's  in  1576.  He  is  supposed,  on  insufficient  grounds, 
as  it  appears  to  me,  to  have  met  with  some  disgust  or 
disappointment  during  his  residence  at  the  University.* 
Between  1576  and  1578  Spenser  seems  to  have  been 
with  some  of  his  kinsfolk  "  in  the  North."  It  was  dur 
ing  this  interval  that  he  conceived  his  fruitless  passion 
for  the  Rosalinde,  whose  jilting  him  for  another  shep 
herd,  whom  he  calls  Menalcas,  is  somewhat  perfunctorily 
bemoaned  in  his  pastorals.t  Before  the  publication  of 
his  "Shepherd's  Calendar"  in  1579,  he  had  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  was  domiciled 
with  him  for  a  time  at  Penshurst,  whether  as  guest  or 
literary  dependant  is  uncertain.  In  October,  1579,  he 
is  in  the  household  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester.  In  July, 

*  This  has  been  inferred  from  a  passage  in  one  of  Gabriel  Harvey's 
letters  to  him.  But  it  would  seem  more  natural,  from  the  many 
allusions  in  Harvey's  pamphlets  against  Nash,  that  it  was  his  own 
wrongs  which  he  had  in  mind,  and  his  self-absorption  would  take  it 
for  granted  that  Spenser  sympathized  with  him  in  all  his  grudges. 
Harvey  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  refining  influence  of  classical 
studies.  Amid  the  pedantic  farrago  of  his  omni-sufficiency  (to  borrow 
one  of  his  own  words)  we  come  suddenly  upon  passages  whose  gravity 
of  sentiment,  stateliness  of  movement,  and  purity  of  diction  remind 
us  of  Landor.  These  lucid  intervals  in  his  overweening  vanity  explain 
and  justify  the  friendship  of  Spenser.  Yet  the  reiteration  of  emphasis 
with  which  he  insists  on  all  the  world's  knowing  that  Nash  had  called 
him  an  ass,  probably  gave  Shakespeare  the  hint  for  one  of  the  most 
comic  touches  in  the  character  of  Dogberry. 

•f  The  late  Major  C.  G.  Halpine,  in  a  very  interesting  essay,  makes 
it  extremely  probable  that  Eosalinde  is  the  anagram  of  Rose  Daniel, 
sister  of  the  poet,  and  married  to  John  Florio.  He  leaves  little  doubt, 
also,  that  the  name  of  Spenser's  wife  (hitherto  unknown)  was  Eliza 
beth  Nagle.  (See  "Atlantic  Monthly,"  Vol.  II.  674,  November,  1858. ) 
Mr.  Halpine  informed  me  that  he  found  the  substance  of  his  essay 
among  the  papers  of  his  father,  the  late  Rev.  N.  J.  Halpine,  of  Dub 
lin.  The  latter  published  in  the  series  of  the  Shakespeare  Society  a 
sprightly  little  tract  entitled  "  Oberon,"  which,  if  not  quite  convin 
cing,  is  well  worth  reading  for  its  ingenuity  and  research. 


SPENSER.  143 

1580,  he  accompanied  Lord  Grey  de  Wilton  to  Ireland 
as  Secretary,  and  in  that  country  he  spent  the  rest  of 
his  life,  with  occasional,  flying  visits  to  England  to  pub 
lish  poems  or  in  search  of  preferment.  His  residence 
in  that  country  has  been  compared  to  that  of  Ovid  in 
Pontus.  And,  no  doubt,  there  were  certain  outward 
points  of  likeness.  The  Irishry  by  whom  he  was  sur 
rounded  were  to  the  full  as  savage,  as  hostile,  and  as 
tenacious  of  their  ancestral  habitudes  as  the  Scythians  * 
who  made  Tomi  a  prison,  and  the  descendants  of  the 
earlier  English  settlers  had  degenerated  as  much  as  the 
Mix-Hellenes  who  disgusted  the  Latin  poet.  Spenser 
himself  looked  on  his  life  in  Ireland  as  a  banishment. 
In  his  "  Colin  Clout 's  come  Home  again  "  he  tells  us 
that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  who  visited  him  in  1589,  and 
heard  what  was  then  finished  of  the  "  Faery  Queen,"  — 

"  'Gan  to  cast  great  liking  to  my  lore 
And  great  disliking  to  my  luckless  lot, 
That  banisht  had  myself,  like  wight  forlore, 
Into  that  waste,  where  I  was  quite  forgot. 
The  which  to  leave  thenceforth  he  counselled  me, 
Unmeet  for  man  in  whom  was  aught  regardful, 
And  wend  with  him  his  Cynthia  to  see, 
Whose  grace  was  great  and  bounty  most  rewardful." 

But  Spenser  was  already  living  at  Kilcolman  Castle 
(which,  with  3,028  acres  of  land  from  the  forfeited  es 
tates  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond,  was  confirmed  to  him  by 
grant  two  years  later),  amid  scenery  at  once  placid  and 
noble,  whose  varied  charm  he  felt  profoundly.  He  could 
not  complain,  with  Ovid,  — 

"  Non  liber  hie  ullus,  non  qui  mihi  commodet  aurem," 
for  he  was  within  reach  of  a  cultivated  society,  which 
gave  him  the    stimulus  of  hearty  admiration    both  as 
poet  and  scholar.     Above  all,  he  was  fortunate  in  a  se- 

*  In  his  prose  tract  on  Ireland,  Spenser,  perhaps  with  some  memory 
of  Ovid  iu  Ms  mind,  derives  the  Irish  mainly  from  the  Scythians. 


144  SPENSER. 

elusion  that  prompted  study  and  deepened  meditation, 
while  it  enabled  him  to  converse  with  his  genius  disen 
gaged  from  those  worldly  influences  which  would  have 
disenchanted  it  of  its  mystic  enthusiasm,  if  they  did 
not  muddle  it  ingloriously  away.  Surely  this  seques 
tered  nest  was  more  congenial  to  the  brooding  of  those 
ethereal  visions  of  the  "  Faery  Queen  "  and  to  giving  his 
"  soul  a  loose  "  than 

"  The  smoke,  the  wealth,  and  noise  of  Rome, 

And  all  the  busy  pageantry 
That  wise  men  scorn  and  fools  adore." 

Yet  he  longed  for  London,  if  not  with  the  homesickness 
of  Bussy-Rabutin  in  exile  from  the  Parisian  sun,  yet 
enough  to  make  him  joyfully  accompany  Raleigh  thither 
in  the  early  winter  of  1589,  carrying  with  him  the  first 
three  books  of  the  great  poem  begun  ten  years  before. 
Horace's  nonum  prematur  in  annum  had  been  more  than 
complied  with,  and  the  success  was  answerable  to  the 
well-seasoned  material  and  conscientious  faithfulness  of 
the  work.  But  Spenser  did  not  stay  long  in  London  to 
enjoy  his  fame.  Seen  close  at  hand,  with  its  jealousies, 
intrigues,  and  selfish  basenesses,  the  court  had  lost  the 
enchantment  lent  by  the' distance  of  Kilcolman.  A  na 
ture  so  prone  to  ideal  contemplation  as  Spenser's  would 
be  profoundly  shocked  by  seeing  too  closely  the  igno 
ble  springs  of  contemporaneous  policy,  and  learning  by 
what  paltry  personal  motives  the  noble  opportunities 
of  the  world  are  at  any  given  moment  endangered.  It 
is  a  sad  discovery  that  histoiy  is  so  mainly  made  by 

ignoble  men. 

"  Vide  questo  globo 
Tal  ch'ei  sorrise  del  suo  vil  sembiante." 

In  his  "Colin  Clout,"  written  just  after  his  return  to 
Ireland,  he  speaks  of  the  Court  in  a  tone  of  contempt 
uous  bitterness,  in  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  thei'e  is 


SPENSER.  145 

more  of  the  sorrow  of  disillusion  than  of  the  gall  of 
personal  disappointment.     He  speaks,  so  he  tells  us,  — 

"  To  warn  young  shepherds'  wandering  wit 
Which,  through  report  of  that  life's  painted  bliss, 
Abandon  quiet  home  to  seek  for  it 
And  leave  their  lambs  to  loss  misled  amiss; 
For,  sooth  to  say,  it  is  no  sort  of  life 
,    For  shepherd  fit  to  live  in  that  same  place, 

Where  each  one  seeks  with  malice  and  with  strife 

To  thrust  down  other  into  foul  disgrace 

Himself  to  raise;  and  he  doth  soonest  rise 

That  best  can  handle  his  deceitful  wit 

In  subtle  shifts    •    .         .         . 

To  which  him  needs  a  guileful  hollow  heart 

Masked  with  fair  dissembling  courtesy, 

A  filed  tongue  furnisht  with  terms  of  art, 

No  art  of  school,  but  courtiers'  schoolery. 

For  arts  of  school  have  there  small  countenance, 

Counted  but  toys  to  busy  idle  brains, 

And  there  professors  find  small  maintenance, 

But  to  be  instruments  of  others'  gains, 

Nor  is  there  place  for  any  gentle  wit 

Unless  to  please  it  can  itself  apply. 

Even  such  is  all  their  vaunted  vanity, 

Naught  else  but  smoke  that  passeth  soon  away. 

So  they  themselves  for  praise  of  fools  do  sell, 
And  all  their  wealth  for  painting  on  a  wall. 

Whiles  single  Truth  and  simple  Honesty 
Do  wander  up  and  down  despised  of  all."  * 

And  again  in  his  "  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale,"  in  the  most 
pithy  and  masculine  verses  he  ever  wrote  :  — 

"  Most  miserable  man,  whom  wicked  Fate 
Hath  brought  to  Court  to  sue  for  Had-I-wist 
That  few  have  found  and  many  one  hath  mist ! 
Full  little  kuowest  thou  that  hast  not  tried 
What  hell  it  is  in  suing  long  to  bide  ; 
To  lose  good  days  that  might  be  better  spent, 
To  waste  long  nights  in  pensive  discontent, 
To  speed  to-day,  to  be  put  back  to-morrow, 

*  Compare  Shakespeare's  LXVI.  Sonnet. 
7 


146  SPENSEK. 

To  feed  on  hope,  to  pine  with  fear  and  sorrow, 
To  have  thy  prince's  grace  yet  want  her  Peers', 
To  have  thy  asking  yet  wait  many  years, 
To  fret  thy  soul  with  crosses  and  with  cares, 
To  eat  thy  heart  through  comfortless  despairs, 
To  fawn,  to  crouch,  to  wait,  to  ride,  to  run, 
To  spend,  to  give,  to  want,  to  be  undone. 

Whoever  leaves  sweet  home,  where  mean  estate 
In  safe  assurance,  without  strife  or  hate, 
Finds  all  things  needful  for  contentment  meek, 
And  will  to  court  for  shadows  vain  to  seek, 

That  curse  God  send  unto  mine  enemy  ! "  * 
When  Spenser  had  once  got  safely  back  to  the  secure 
retreat  and  serene   companionship   of  his  great  poem, 
with  what  profound   and  pathetic  exultation  must  he 
have  recalled  the  verses  of  Dante  !  — 

"Chi  dietro  a  jura,  e  chi  ad  aforismi 

Sen  giva,  e  chi  seguendo  sacerdozio, 

E  chi  regnar  per  forza  e  per  sofismi, 

E  chi  rubare,  e  chi  civil  negozio, 

Chi  nei  diletti  della  carne  involto 

S'  affaticava,  e  chi  si  dava  all'  ozio, 

Quando  da  tutte  queste  cose  sciolto, 

Con  Beatrice  m'  era  suso  in  cielo 

Cotanto  gloriosamente  accolto.""!* 

What  Spenser  says  of  the  indifference  of  the  court  to 
learning  and  literature  is  the  more  remarkable  because 
he  himself  was  by  no  means  an  unsuccessful  suitor. 

*  This  poem,  published  in  1591,  was,  Spenser  tells  us  in  his  dedica 
tion,  "  long  sithens  composed  in  the  raw  conceit  of  my  youth."  But 
he  had  evidently  retouched  it.  The  verses  quoted  show  a  firmer  hand 
than  is  generally  seen  in  it,  and  we  are  safe  in  assuming  that  they 
were  added  after  his  visit  to  England.  Dr.  Johnson  epigrammatized 
Spenser's  indictment  into 

"  There  mark  what  ills  the  scholar's  life  assail, 
Toil,  envy,  want,  the  patron,  and  the  jail," 

but  I  think  it  loses  in  pathos  more  than  it  gains  in  point. 

+  Paradiso,  XL  4-12.  Spenser  was  familiar  with  the  "Divina 
Commedia,"  though  I  do  not  remember  that  his  commentators  have 
pointed  out  his  chief  obligations  to  it. 


SPENSER.  147 

Queen  Elizabeth  bestowed  on  him  a  pension  of  fifty 
pounds,  and  shortly  after  he  received  the  grant  of  lands 
already  mentioned.  It  is  said,  indeed,  that  Lord  Bur- 
leigh  in  some  way  hindered  the  advancement  of  the 
poet,  who  more  than  once  directly  alludes  to  him  either 
in  reproach  or  remonstrance.  In  "  The  Ruins  of  Time," 
after  speaking  of  the  death  of  Walsingham, 

"Since  whose  decease  learning  lies  unregarded, 
And  men  of  armes  do  wander  unrewarded," 

he  gives  the  following  reason  for  their  neglect :  — 

"For  he  that  now  wields  all  things  at  his  will, 
Scorns  th'  one  and  th'  other  in  his  deeper  skill. 
0  grief  of  griefs  !     O  gall  of  all  good  hearts, 
To  see  that  virtue  should  despised  be 
Of  him  that  first  was  raised  for  virtuous  parts, 
And  now,  broad-spreading  like  an  aged  tree, 
Lets  none  shoot  up  that  nigli  him  planted  be  : 
O  let  the  man  of  whom  the  Muse  is  scorned 
Nor  live  nor  dead  be  of  the  Muse  adorned !  " 

And  in  the  introduction  to  the  fourth  book  of  the 
"  Faery  Queen,"  he  says  again  :  — 

"  The  rugged  forehead  that  with  grave  foresight 
Wields  kingdoms'  causes  and  affairs  of  state, 
My  looser  rhymes,  I  wot,  doth  sharply  wite 
For  praising  Love,  as  I  have  done  of  late,  — 

By  which  frail  youth  is  oft  to  folly  led 

Through  false  allurement  of  that  pleasing  bait, 

That  better  were  in  virtues  discipled 

Than  with  vain  poems'  weeds  to  have  their  fancies  fed. 

"  Such  ones  ill  judge  of  love  that  cannot  love 
Nor  in  their  frozen  hearts  feel  kindly  flame  ; 
Forthy  they  ought  not  thing  unknown  reprove, 
Ne  natural  affection  faultless  blame 
For  fault  of  few  that  have  abused  the  same  : 
For  it  of  honor  and  all  virtue  is 
The  root,  and  brings  forth  glorious  flowers  of  fame 
That  crown  true  lovers  with  immortal  bliss, 
The  meed  of  them  ^hat  love  and  do  not  live  amiss." 


148  SPENSEK. 

If  Lord  Burleigh  could  not  relish  such  a  dish  of  night 
ingales'  tongues  as  the  "  Faery  Queen,"  he  is  very  much 
more  to  be  pitied  than  Spenser.  The  sensitive  purity 
of  the  poet  might  indeed  well  be  wounded  when  a  poem 
in  which  he  proposed  to  himself  "  to  discourse  at  large  " 
of  "  the  ethick  part  of  Moral  Philosophy  "  *  could  be  so 
misinterpreted.  But  Spenser  speaks  in  the  same  strain 
and  without  any  other  than  a  general  application  in  his 
"  Tears  of  the  Muses,"  and  his  friend  Sidney  undertakes 
the  defence  of  poesy  because  it  was  undervalued.  But 
undervalued  by  whom  1  By  the  only  persons  about  whom 
he  knew  or  cared  anything,  those  whom  we  should  now 
call  Society  and  who  were  then  called  the  Court.  The 
inference  I  would  draw  is  that,  among  the  causes  which 
contributed  to  the  marvellous  efflorescence  of  genius  in 
the  last  quarter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  influence 
of  direct  patronage  from  above  is  to  be  reckoned  at 
almost  nothing.t  Then,  as  when  the  same  phenomenon 
has  happened  elsewhere,  there  must  have  been  a  sym 
pathetic  public.  Literature,  properly  so  called,  draws 
its  sap  from  the  deep  soil  of  human  nature's  common 
and  everlasting  sympathies,  the  gathered  leaf-mould  of 

*  His  own  words  as  reported  by  Lodowick  Bryskett.  (Todd's 
Spenser,  I.  Ix.)  The  whole  passage  is  very  interesting  as  giving  us 
the  only  glimpse  we  get  of  the  living  Spenser  in  actual  contact  witli 
his  fellow-men.  It  shows  him  to  us,  as  we  could  wish  to  see  him, 
surrounded  with  loving  respect,  companionable  and  helpful.  Bryskett 
tells  ns  that  he  was  "perfect  in  the  Greek  tongue,"  and  "also  very 
well  read  in  philosophy  both  moral  and  natural."  He  encouraged 
Bryskett  in  the  study  of  Greek,  and  offered  to  help  him  in  it.  Com 
paring  the  last  verse  of  the  above  citation  of  the  "Faery  Queen"  with 
other  passages  in  Spenser,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  he  wrote,  "do 
not  love  amiss." 

t  "And  know,  sweet  prince,  when  you  shall  come  to  know, 

That 't  is  not  in  the  power  of  kings  to  raise 

A  spirit  for  verse  that  is  not  born  thereto; 

Nor  are  they  born  in  every  prince's  days." 

Daniel's  Dedic.  Trag.  of  "  PMlotas." 


SPENSER.  149 


countless  generations  (olrj  irep  (frtiXXav  yevfrj),  and  not  from 
any  top-dressing  capriciously  scattered  over  the  surface 
at  some  master's  bidding.*  England  had  long  been 
growing  more  truly  insular  in  language  and  political 
ideas  when  the  Reformation  came  to  precipitate  her  na 
tional  consciousness  by  secluding  her  more  completely 
from  the  rest  of  Europe.  Hitherto  there  had  been  Eng 
lishmen  of  a  distinct  type  enough,  honestly  hating  for 
eigners,  and  reigned  over  by  kings  of  whom  they  were 
proud  or  not  as  the  case  might  be,  but  there  was  no 
England  as  a  separate  entity  from  the  sovereign  who 
embodied  it  for  the  time  being.t  But  now  an  English 
people  began  to  be  dimly  aware  of  itself.  Their  having 
got  a  religion  to  themselves  must  have  intensified  them 
much  as  the  having  a  god  of  their  own  did  the  Jews. 
The  exhilaration  of  relief  after  the  long  tension  of  anx 
iety,  when  the  Spanish  Armada  was  overwhelmed  like 
the  hosts  of  Pharaoh,  while  it  confirmed  their  assurance 
of  a  provincial  deity,  must  also  have  been  like  sunshine 
to  bring  into  flower  all  that  there  was  of  imaginative  or 
sentimental  in  the  English  nature,  already  just  in  the 
first  flush  of  its  spring. 

(  "  The  yonge  sonne 
Had  in  the  Bull  half  of  his  course  yronne.") 

And  just  at  this  moment  of  blossoming  every  breeze 

*  Louis  XIV.  is  commonly  supposed  in  some  miraculous  way  to 
have  created  French  literature.  He  may  more  truly  be  said  to  have 
petrified  it  so  far  as  his  influence  went.  The  French  renaissance  in 
the  preceding  century  was  produced  by  causes  similar  in  essentials  to 
those  which  brought  about  that  in  England  not  long  after.  The  grand 
siecle  grew  by  natural  processes  of  development  out  of  that  which  had 
preceded  it,  and  which,  to  the  impartial  foreigner  at  least,  has  more 
flavor,  and  more  French  flavor  too,  than  the  Gallo-Roman  usurper 
that  pushed  it  from  its  stool.  The  best  modern  French  poetry  has 
been  forced  to  temper  its  verses  in  the  colder  natural  springs  of  the 
ante-classic  period. 

t  In  the  Elizabethan  drama  the  words  "  England  "  and  "  France" 
are  constantly  used  to  signify  the  kings  of  those  countries. 


150  SPENSER. 

was  dusty  with  the  golden  pollen  of  Greece,  Rome,  and 
Italy.  If  Keats  could  say,  when  he  first  opened  Chap 
man's  Homer,  — 

"  Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken ; 
Or  like  stout  Cortez  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific,  and  his  men 
Looked  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise," 

if  Keats  could  say  this,  whose  mind  had  been  uncon 
sciously  fed  with  the  results  of  this  culture,  —  results 
that  permeated  all  thought,  all  literature,  and  all  talk, 
—  fancy  what  must  have  been  the  awakening  shock  and 
impulse  communicated  to  men's  brains  by  the  revelation 
of  this  new  world  of  thought  and  fancy,  an  unveiling 
gradual  yet  sudden,  like  that  of  a  great  organ,  which 
discovered  to  them  what  a  wondrous  instrument  was  in 
the  soul  of  man  with  its  epic  and  lyric  stops,  its  deep 
thunders  of  tragedy,  and  its  passionate  vox  humana  ! 
It  might  almost  seem  as  if  Shakespeare  had  typified  all 
this  in  Miranda,  when  she  cries  out  at  first  sight  of  the 
king  and  his  courtiers, 

" 0,  wonder! 

How  many  goodly  creatures  are  there  here  ! 
How  beauteoiis  mankind  is  !     O,  brave  new  world 
That  hath  such  people  in 't ! " 

The  civil  wars  of  the  Roses  had  been  a  barren  period  in 
English  literature,  because  they  had  been  merely  dynas 
tic  squabbles,  in  which  no  great  principles  were  involved 
which  could  shake  all  minds  with  controversy  and  heat 
them  to  intense  conviction.  A  conflict  of  opposing  am 
bitions  wears  out  the  moral  no  less  than  the  material 
forces  of  a  people,  but  the  ferment  of  hostile  ideas  and 
convictions  may  realize  resources  of  character  which 
before  were  only  potential,  may  transform  a  merely  gre 
garious  multitude  into  a  nation  proud  in  its  strength, 
sensible  of  the  dignity  and  duty  which  strength  involves, 


SPENSER.  151 

and  groping  after  a  common  ideal.  Some  such  trans 
formation  had  been  wrought  or  was  going  on  in  England. 
For  the  first  time  a  distinct  image  of  her  was  disengaging 
itself  from  the  tangled  blur  of  tradition  and  association 
in  the  minds  of  her  children,  and  it  was  now  only  that 
her  great  poet  could  speak  exultingly  to  an  audience 
that  would  understand  him  with  a  passionate  sympathy, 
of 

"This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world, 
This  precious  stone  set  in  a  silver  sea, 
This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England, 
This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land, 
England,  bound  in  with  the  triumphant  sea  ! " 

Such  a  period  can  hardly  recur  again,  but  something 
like  it,  something  pointing  back  to  similar  producing 
causes,  is  observable  in  the  revival  of  English  imagina 
tive  literature  at  the  close  of  the  last  and  in  the  early 
years  of  the  present  century.  Again,  after  long  fermen 
tation,  there  was  a  war  of  principles,  again  the  national 
consciousness  was  heightened  and  stung  by  a  danger  to 
the  national  existence,  and  again  there  was  a  crop  of 
great  poets  and  heroic  men. 

Spenser  once  more  visited  England,  bringing  with  him 
three  more  books  of  the  "Faery  Queen,"  in  1595.  He 
is  supposed  to  have  remained  there  during  the  two  fol 
lowing  years.*  In  1594  he  had  been  married  to  the 
lady  celebrated  in  his  somewhat  artificial  amoretti.  By 
her  he  had  four  children.  He  was  now  at  the  height 
of  his  felicity  ;  by  universal  acclaim  the  first  poet  of 
his  age,  and  the  one  obstacle  to  his  material  advance 
ment  (if  obstacle  it  was)  had  been  put  out  of  the  way 

*  I  say  supposed,  for  the  names  of  his  two  sons,  Sylvanus  and 
Peregrine,  indicate  that  they  were  born  in  Ireland,  and  that  Spenser 
continued  to  regard  it  as  a  wilderness  and  his  abode  there  as  exile. 
The  two  other  children  are  added  on  the  authority  of  a  pedigree 
drawn  up  by  Sir  W.  Beth  am  and  cited  in  Mr.  Hales's  Life  of  Spenser 
prefixed  to  the  Globe  edition. 


152  SPENSER. 

by  the  death  of  Lord  Burleigh,  August,  1598.  In  the 
next  month  he  was  recommended  in  a  letter  from  Queen 
Elizabeth  for  the  shrievalty  of  the  county  of  Cork.  But 
alas  for  Polycrates !  In  October  the  wild  kerns  and 
gallowglasses  rose  in  no  mood  for  sparing  the  house  of 
Pindarus.  They  sacked  and  burned  his  castle,  from 
which  he  with  his  wife  and  children  barely  escaped.* 
He  sought  shelter  in  London  and  died  there  on  the  16th 
January,  1599,  at  a  tavern  in  King  Street,  Westminster. 
He  was  buried  in  the  neighboring  Abbey  next  to  Chaucer, 
at  the  cost  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  poets  bearing  his  pall 
and  casting  verses  into  his  grave.  He  died  poor,  but 
not  in  want.  On  the  whole,  his  life  may  be  reckoned 
a  happy  one,  as  in  the  main  the  lives  of  the  great  poets 
must  have  commonly  been.  If  they  feel  more  passion 
ately  the  pang  of  the  moment,  so  also  the  compensations 
are  incalculable,  and  not  the  least  of  them  this  very 

*  Ben  Jonson  told  Driiramond  that  one  child  perished  in  the  flames. 
But  he  was  speaking  after  an  interval  of  twenty-one  years,  and,  of 
course,  from  hearsay.  Spenser's  misery  was  exaggerated  by  succeed 
ing  poets,  who  used  him  to  point  a  moral,  and  from  the  shelter  of  his 
tomb  launched  many  a  shaft  of  sarcasm  at  an  unappreciative  public. 
Giles  Fletcher  in  his  "  Purple  Island  "  (a  poem  which  reminds  us  of 
the  "  Faery  Queen  "  by  the  supreme  tediousness  of  its  allegory,  but 
in  nothing  else)  set  the  example  in  the  best  verse  he  ever  wrote:  — 

"  Poorly,  poor  man,  he  lived ;  poorly,  poor  man,  he  died." 
Gradually  this  poetical  tradition  established  itself  firmly  as  authentic 
history.  Spenser  could  never  have  been  poor,  except  by  comparison. 
The  whole  story  of  his  later  days  has  a  strong  savor  of  legend.  He 
must  have  had  ample  warning  of  Tyrone's  rebellion,  and  would  prob 
ably  have  sent  away  his  wife  and  children  to  Cork,  if  he  did  not  go 
thither  himself.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  he  did,  carrying  his 
papers  with  him,  and  among  them  the  two  cantos  of  Mutability,  first 
published  in  1611.  These,  it  is  most  likely,  were  the  only  ones  he 
ever  completed,  for,  with  all  his  abundance,  he  was  evidently  a  labo 
rious  finisher.  When  we  remember  that  ten  years  were  given  to  the 
elaboration  of  the  first  three  books,  and  that  five  more  elapsed  before 
the  next  three  were  ready,  we  shall  waste  no  vain  regrets  on  the  six 
concluding  books  supposed  to  have  been  lost  by  the  carelessness  of  an 
imaginary  servant  on  their  way  from  Ireland. 


SPENSEE.  153 

capacity  of  passionate  emotion.  The  real  good  fortune 
is  to  be  measured,  not  by  more  or  less  of  outward  pros 
perity,  but  by  the  opportunity  given  for  the  development 
and  free  play  of  the  genius.  It  should  be  remembered 
that  the  power  of  expression  which  exaggerates  their 
griefs  is  also  no  inconsiderable  consolation  for  them. 
We  should  measure  what  Spenser  says  of  his  worldly 
disappointments  by  the  bitterness  of  the  unavailing 
tears  he  shed  for  Eosalind.  A  careful  analysis  of 
these  leaves  no  perceptible  residuum  of  salt,  and  we 
are  tempted  to  believe  that  the  passion  itself  was  not 
much  more  real  than  the  pastoral  accessories  of  pipe 
and  crook.  I  very  much  doubt  whether  Spenser  ever 
felt  more  than  one  profound  passion  in  his  life,  and  that 
luckily  was  for  his  "Faery  Queen."  He  was  fortunate 
in  the  friendship  of  the  best  men  and  women  of  his 
time,  in  the  seclusion  which  made  him  free  of  the  still 
better  society  of  the  past,  in  the  loving  recognition  of 
his  countrymen.  All  that  we  know  of  him  is  amiable 
and  of  good  report.  He  was  faithful  to  the  friendships 
of  his  youth,  pure  in  his  loves,  unspotted  in  his  life. 
Above  all,  the  ideal  with  him  was  not  a  thing  apart 
and  unattainable,  but  the  sweetener  and  ennobler  of  the 
street  and  the  fireside. 

There  are  two  ways  of  measuring  a  poet,  either  by  an 
absolute  sesthetic  standard,  or  relatively  to  his  position 
in  the  literary  history  of  his  country  and  the  conditions 
of  his  generation.  Both  should  be  borne  in  mind  as 
coefficients  in  a  perfectly  fair  judgment.  If  his  positive 
merit  is  to  be  settled  irrevocably  by  the  former,  yet  an 
intelligent  criticism  will  find  its  advantage  not  only  in 
considering  what  he  was,  but  what,  under  the  given  cir 
cumstances,  it  was  possible  for  him  to  be. 

The  fact  that  the  great  poem  of  Spenser  was  inspired 
by  the  Orlando  of  Ariosto,  and  written  in  avowed  emu- 
7* 


154  SPENSER. 

lation  of  it,  and  that  the  poet  almost  always  needs  to 
have  his  fancy  set  agoing  by  the  hint  of  some  predeces 
sor,  must  not  lead  us  to  overlook  his  manifest  claim  to 
originality.  It  is  not  what  a  poet  takes,  but  what  he 
makes  out  of  what  he  has  taken,  that  shows  what  native 
force  is  in  him.  Above  all,  did  his  mind  dwell  compla 
cently  in  those  forms  and  fashions  which  in  their  very 
birth  are  already  obsolescent,  or  was  it  instinctively 
drawn  to  those  qualities  which  are  permanent  in  lan 
guage  and  whatever  is  wrought  in  it  1  There  is  much 
in  Spenser  that  is  contemporary  and  evanescent ;  but 
the  substance  of  him  is  durable,  and  his  work  was  the 
deliberate  result  of  intelligent  purpose  and  ample  cul 
ture.  The  publication  of  his  "Shepherd's  Calendar" 
in  1579  (though  the  poem  itself  be  of  little  interest)  is 
one  of  the  epochs  in  our  literature.  Spenser  had  at 
least  the  originality  to  see  clearly  and  to  feel  keenly 
that  it  was  essential  to  bring  poetry  back  again  to  some 
kind  of  understanding  with  nature.  His  immediate 
predecessors  seem  to  have  conceived  of  it  as  a  kind 
of  bird  of  paradise,  born  to  float  somewhere  between 
heaven  and  earth,  with  no  very  well  denned  relation 
to  either.  It  is  true  that  the  nearest  approach  they 
were  able  to  make  to  this  airy  ideal  was  a  shuttlecock, 
winged  with  a  bright  plume  or  so  from  Italy,  but,  after 
all,  nothing  but  cork  and  feathers,  which  they  bandied 
back  and  forth  from  one  stanza  to  another,  with  the 
useful  ambition  of  keeping  it  up  as  long  as  they  could. 
.  To  my  mind  the  old  comedy  of  "  Gammer  Gurton's 
Needle  "  is  worth  the  whole  of  them.  It  may  be  coarse, 
earthy,  but  in  reading  it  one  feels  that  he  is  at  least  a 
man  among  men,  and  not  a  humbug  among  humbugs. 

The  form  of  Spenser's  "Shepherd's  Calendar,"  it  is 
true,  is  artificial,  absurdly  so  if  you  look  at  it  merely 
from  the  outside,  —  not,  perhaps,  the  wisest  way  to 


SPENSER.  155 

look  at  anything,  unless  it  be  a  jail  or  a  volume  of  the 
"Congressional  Globe,"  —  but  the  spirit  of  it  is  fresh 
and  original.  We  have  at  last  got  over  the  superstition 
that  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  are  any  wiser  or  sim 
pler  than  other  people.  We  know  that  wisdom  can  be 
won  only  by  wide  commerce  with  men  and  books,  and 
that  simplicity,  whether  of  manners  or  style,  is  the 
crowning  result  of  the  highest  culture.  But  the  pas 
torals  of  Spenser  were  very  different  things,  different 
both  in  the  moving  spirit  and  the  resultant  form  from 
the  later  ones  of  Browne  or  the  "  Piscatory  Eclogues  " 
of  Phinehas  Fletcher.  And  why  ]  Browne  and  Fletcher 
wrote  because  Spenser  had  written,  but  Spenser  wrote 
from  a  strong  inward  impulse  —  an  instinct  it  might  be 
called  —  to  escape  at  all  risks  into  the  fresh  air  from 
that  horrible  atmosphere  into  which  rhymer  after  rhymer 
had  been  pumping  carbonic-acid  gas  with  the  full  force 
of  his  lungs,  and  in  which  all  sincerity  was  on  the  edge 
of  suffocation.  His  longing  for  something  truer  and 
better  was  as  honest  as  that  which  led  Tacitus  so  long 
before  to  idealize  the  Germans,  and  Rousseau  so  long 
after  to  make  an  angel  of  the  savage. 

Spenser  himself  supremely  overlooks  the  whole  chasm 
between  himself  and  Chaucer,  as  Dante  between  him 
self  and  Virgil.  He  called  Chaucer  master,  as  Milton 
was  afterwards  to  call  him.  And,  even  while  he  chose 
the  most  artificial  of  all  forms,  his  aim  —  that  of  getting 
back  to  nature  and  life  —  was  conscious,  I  have  no  doubt, 
to  himself,  and  must  be  obvious  to  whoever  reads  with 
anything  but  the  ends  of  his  fingers.  It  is  true  that 
Sanuazzaro  had  brought  the  pastoral  into  fashion  again, 
and  that  two  of  Spenser's  are  little  more  than  transla 
tions  from  Marot ;  but  for  manner  he  instinctively  turned 
back  to  Chaucer,  the  first  and  then  only  great  English 
poet.  He  has  given  common  instead  of  classic  names 


156  SPENSER. 

to  his  personages,  for  characters  they  can  hardly  be 
called.  Above  all,  he  has  gone  to  the  provincial  dialects 
for  words  wherewith  to  enlarge  and  freshen  his  poetical 
vocabulary.*  I  look  upon  the  "  Shepherd's  Calendar  " 
as  being  no  less  a  conscious  and  deliberate  attempt  at 
reform  than  Thomson's  "  Seasons "  were  in  the  topics, 
and  Wordsworth's  "Lyrical  Ballads"  in  the  language 
of  poetry.  But  the  great  merit  of  these  pastorals  was 
not  so  much  in  their  matter  as  their  manner.  They 
show  a  sense  of  style  in  its  larger  meaning  hitherto  dis 
played  by  no  English  poet  since  Chaucer.  Surrey  had 
brought  back  from  Italy  a  certain  inkling  of  it,  so  far  as 
it  is  contained  in  decorum.  But  here  was  a  new  lan 
guage,  a  choice  and  arrangement  of  words,  a  variety, 
elasticity,  and  harmony  of  verse  most  grateful  to  the  ears 
of  men.  If  not  passion,  there  was  fervor,  which  was  per 
haps  as  near  it  as  the  somewhat  stately  movement  of 
Spenser's  mind  would  allow  him  to  come.  Sidney  had 
tried  many  experiments  in  versification,  which  are  curi- 
oxis  and  interesting,  especially  his  attempts  to  naturalize 
the  sliding  rhymes  of  Sannazzaro  in  English.  But  there 
is  everywhere  the  uncertainty  of  a  'prentice  hand.  Spen 
ser  shows  himself  already  a  master,  at  least  in  verse,  and 
we  can  trace  the  studies  of  Milton,  a  yet  greater  master, 

*  Sir  Philip  Sidney  did  not  approve  of  this.  "  That  same  framing 
of  his  style  to  an  old  rustic  language  I  dare  not  allow,  since  neither 
Theocritus  in  Greek,  Virgil  in  Latin,  nor  Sannazzaro  in  Italian  did 
affect  it."  ("Defence  of  Poesy."}  Ben  Jonson,  on  the  other  hand, 
said  that  Guarini  "kept  not  decorum  in  making  shepherds  speak  as 
well  as  himself  could."  ("  Conversations  with  Drummond.")  I  think 
Sidney  was  right,  for  the  poets'  Arcadia  is  a  purely  ideal  world,  and 
should  lie  treated  accordingly.  But  whoever  looks  into  the  glossary 
appended  to  the  "Calendar"  by  E.  K.,  will  be  satisfied  that  Spenser's 
object  was  to  find  unhackneyed  and  poetical  words  rather  than  such 
as  should  seem  more  on  a  level  with  the  speakers.  See  also  the 
"  Epistle  Dedicatory."  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  E.  K.  was  Spen 
ser  himself,  with  occasional  interjections  of  Harvey.  Who  else  could 
have  written  such  English  as  many  passages  in  this  Epistle  ? 


SPENSER  157 

in  the  "Shepherd's  Calendar"  as  well  as  in  the  "Faery- 
Queen."  We  have  seen  that  Spenser,  under  the  mis 
leading  influence  of  Sidney  *  and  Harvey,  tried  his  hand 
at  English  hexameters.  But  his  great  glory  is  that  he 
taught  his  own  language  to  sing  and  move  to  measures 
harmonious  and  noble.  Chaucer  had  done  much  to  vo 
calize  it,  as  I  have  tried  to  show  elsewhere,t  but  Spenser 
was  to  prove 

"  That  no  tongue  hath  the  muse's  utterance  heired 
For  verse,  and  that  sweet  music  to  the  ear 
Struck  out  of  rhyme,  so  naturally  as  this." 

The  "  Shepherd's  Calendar  "  contains  perhaps  the  most 
picturesquely  imaginative  verse  which  Spenser  has  writ 
ten.  It  is  in  the  eclogue  for  February,  where  he  tells 

us  of  the 

"  Faded  oak 

Whose  body  is  sere,  whose  branches  broke, 
Whose  naked  arms  stretch  unto  the  fire." 

It  is  one  of  those  verses  that  Joseph  Warton  would  have 
liked  in  secret,  that  Dr.  Johnson  would  have  proved  to 
be  untranslatable  into  reasonable  prose,  and  which  the 
imagination  welcomes  at  once  without  caring  whether  it 
be  exactly  conformable  to  barbara  or  celarent.  Another 
pretty  verse  in  the  same  eclogue, 

"  But  gently  took  that  ungently  came," 

pleased  Coleridge  so  greatly  that  he  thought  it  was  his 
own.  But  in  general  it  is  not  so  much  the  sentiments 
and  images  that  are  new  as  the  modulation  of  the  verses 
in  which  they  float.  The  cold  obstruction  of  two  centu 
ries'  thaws,  and  the  stream  of  speech,  once  more  let  loose, 
seeks  out  its  old  windings,  or  overflows  musically  in  un- 

*  It  was  at  Penshurst  that  he  wrote  the  only  specimen  that  has  come 
down  to  us,  and  bad  enough  it  is.  I  have  said  that  some  of  Sidney's 
are  pleasing. 

t  See  "  My  Study  Windows,"  264  seqq. 


158  .  SPENSEK. 

practised  channels.  The  service  which  Spenser  did  to 
our  literature  by  this  exquisite  sense  of  harmony  is  in 
calculable.  His  fine  ear,  abhorrent  of  barbarous  disso 
nance,  his  dainty  tongue  that  loves  to  prolong  the  relish 
of  a  musical  phrase,  made  possible  the  transition  from 
the  cast-iron  stiffness  of  "  Ferrex  and  Porrex "  to  the 
Damascus  pliancy  of  Fletcher  and  Shakespeare.  It  was 

he  that 

"  Taught  the  dumb  on  high  to  sing, 
And  heavy  ignorance  aloft  to  fly  : 
That  added  feathers  to  the  learned's  wing, 
And  gave  to  grace  a  double  majesty." 

I  do  not  mean  that  in  the  "  Shepherd's  Calendar "  he 
had  already  achieved  that  transmutation  of  language  and 
metre  by  which  he  was  afterwards  to  endow  English 
verse  with  the  most  varied  and  majestic  of  stanzas,  in 
which  the  droning  old  alexandrine,  awakened  for  the 
first  time  to  a  feeling  of  the  poetry  that  was  in  him, 
was  to  wonder,  like  M.  Jourdain,  that  he  had  been  talk 
ing  prose  all  his  life, —  but  already  he  gave  clear  indi 
cations  of  the  tendency  and  premonitions  of  the  power 
which  were  to  carry  it  forward  to  ultimate  perfection. 
A  harmony  and  alacrity  of  language  like  this  were  un 
exampled  in  English  verse  :  — 

"  Ye  dainty  nymphs,  that  in  this  blessed  brook 

Do  bathe  your  breast, 
Forsake  your  watery  bowers  and  hither  look 

At  my  request 

And  eke  you  virgins  that  on  Parnass  dwell, 
Whence  floweth  Helicon,  the  learned  well, 

Help  me  to  blaze 

Her  worthy  praise, 
Which  in  her  sex  doth  all  excel." 

Here  we  have  the  natural  gait  of  the  measure,  somewhat 
formal  and  slow,  as  befits  an  invocation  ;  and  now  mark 
how  the  same  feet  shall  be  made  to  quicken  their  pace 
at  the  bidding  of  the  tune  :  — 


SPENSER.  159 

"  Bring  here  the  pink  and  purple  columbine, 

With  gilliflowers  ; 
Bring  coronations  and  sops  in  wine, 

Worne  of  paramours  ; 

Strow  me  the  ground  with  daffadowndillies,   - 
And  cowslips  and  kingcups  and  loved  lilies ; 

The  pretty  paunce 

And  the  chevisance 
Shall  match  with  the  fair  flowerdelice."  * 

The  argument  prefixed  by  E.  K.  to  the  tenth  Eclogue 
has  a  special  interest  for  us  as  showing  how  high  a  con 
ception  Spenser  had  of  poetry  and  the  poet's  office.  By 
Cuddy  he  evidently  means  himself,  though  choosing  out 
of  modesty  another  name  instead  of  the  familiar  Colin. 
"  In  Cuddy  is  set  forth  the  perfect  pattern  of  a  Poet, 
which,  finding  no  maintenance  of  his  state  and  studies, 
complaineth  of  the  contempt  of  Poetry  and  the  causes 
thereof,  specially  having  been  in  all  ages,  and  even 
amongst  the  most  barbarous,  always  of  singular  account 

*  Of  course  ditties  and  lilies  must  be  read  with  a  slight  accentua 
tion  of  the  last  syllable  (permissible  then),  in  order  to  chime  with  de- 
lice.  In  the  first  line  I  have  put  here  instead  of  hether,  which  (like 
other  words  where  th  comes  between  two  vowels)  was  then  very  often 
a  monosyllable,  in  order  to  throw  the  accent  back  more  strongly  on 
bring,  where  it  belongs.  Spenser's  innovation  lies  in  making  his  verses 
by  ear  instead  of  on  the  finger-tips,  and  in  valuing  the  stave  more  than 
any  of  the  single  verses  that  compose  it.  This  is  the  secret  of  his  easy 
superiority  to  all  others  in  the  stanza  which  he  composed,  and  which 
bears  his  name.  Milton  (who  got  more  of  his  schooling  in  these  mat 
ters  from  Spenser  than  anywhere  else)  gave  this  principle  a  greater 
range,  and  applied  it  with  more  various  mastery.  I  have  little  doubt 
that  the  tune  of  the  last  stanza  cited  above  was  clinging  in"  Shake 
speare's  ear  when  he  wrote  those  exquisite  verses  in  "  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream"  ("  I  know  a  bank"),  where  our  grave  pentameter  is 
in  like  manner  surprised  into  a  lyrical  movement.  See  also  the  pretty 
song  in  the  eclogue  for  August.  Ben  Jonson,  too,  evidently  caught 
some  cadences  from  Spenser  for  his  lyrics.  I  need  hardly  say  that  in 
those  eclogues  (May,  for  example)  where  Spenser  thought  he  was  im 
itating  what  wiseacres  used  to  call  the  riding-rhyme  of  Chaucer,  he 
fails  most  lamentably.  He  had  evidently  learned  to  scan  his  master's 
verses  better  when  he  wrote  his  "  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale." 


160  SPENSER. 

and  honor,  and  "being  indeed  so  worthy  and  commendable 
an  art,  or  rather  no  art,  but  a  divine  gift  and  heavenly  in 
stinct  not  to  be  gotten  by  labor  and  learning,  but  adorned 
with  both,  and  poured  into  the  wit  by  a  certain  Enthou- 
siasmos  and  celestial  inspiration,  as  the  axithor  hereof 
elsewhere  at  large  discourseth  in  his  book  called  THE 
ENGLISH  POET,  which  book  being  lately  come  into  my 
hands,  I  mind  also  by  God's  grace,  upon  further  advise 
ment,  to  publish."  E.  K.,  whoever  he  was,  never  carried 
out  his  intention,  and  the  book  is  no  doubt  lost ;  a  loss 
to  be  borne  with  less  equanimity  than  that  of  Cicero's 
treatise  De  Gloria,  once  possessed  by  Petrarch.  The 
passage  I  have  italicized  is  most  likely  an  extract,  and 
reminds  one  of  the  long-breathed  periods  of  Milton. 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  tells  us,  "he  [Ben  Jonson] 
hath  by  heart  some  verses  of  Spenser's  '  Calendar,'  about 
wine,  between  Coline  and  Percye"  (Cuddie  and  Piers).* 
These  verses  are  in  this  eclogue,  and  are  worth  quoting 
both  as  having  the  approval  of  dear  old  Ben,  the  best 

*  Drummond,  it  will  be  remarked,  speaking  from  memory,  takes 
Cuddy  to  be  Colin.  In  Milton's  "Lycidas"  there  are  reminiscences 
of  this  eclogue  as  well  as  of  that  for  May.  The  latter  are  the  more 
evident,  but  I  think  that  Spenser's 

"  Cuddie,  the  praise  is  better  than  the  price," 

suggested  Milton's 

"  But  not  the  praise, 
Phoebus  replied,  and  touched  my  trembling  ears." 

Shakespeare  had  read  and  remembered  this  pastoral.     Compare 

"  But,  ah,  Mecsenas  is  yclad  in  clay, 
And  great  Augustus  long  ago  is  dead, 
And  all  the  worthies  liggen  wrapt  in  lead," 
with 

"  King  Pandion,  he  is  dead ; 
All  thy  friends  are  lapt  in  lead." 

It  is  odd  that  Shakespeare,  in  his  "Zapt  in  Zead,"  is  more  Spenserian 
than  Spenser  himself,  from  whom  he  caught  this  "hunting  of  the 
letter." 


SPENSER.  161 

X 

critic  of  the  day,  and  because  they  are  a  good  sample  of 
Spenser's  earlier  verse  :  — 

"  Thou  kenst  not,  Percie,  how  the  rhyme  should  rage ; 
O,  if  my  temples  were  distained  with  wine, 
And  girt  in  garlands  of  wild  ivy-twine, 
How  I  could  rear  the  Muse  on  stately  stage 

And  teach  her  tread  aloft  in  buskin  fine 
With  quaint  Bellona  in  her  equipage  !  " 

In  this  eclogue  he  gives  hints  of  that  spacious  style 
which  was  to  distinguish  him,  and  which,  like  his  owu 

Fame, 

"  With  golden  wings  aloft  doth  fly 
Above  the  reach  of  ruinous  decay, 
And  with  brave  plumes  doth  beat  the  azure  sky, 
Admired  of  base-born  men  from  far  away."  * 

He  was  letting  his  wings  grow,  as  Milton  said,  and  fore 
boding  the  "  Faery  Queen  "  :  — 

"  Lift  thyself  up  out  of  the  lowly  dust 

To  'doubted  knights  whose  woundless  armor  rusts 
And  helms  unbruised  waxen  daily  brown  : 
There  may  thy  Muse  display  her  fluttering  wing, 
And  stretch  herself  at  large  from  East  to  West." 

Verses  like  these,  especially  the  last  (which  Dryden 
would  have  liked),  were  such  as  English  ears  had  not 
yet  heard,  and  curiously  prophetic  of  the  maturer  man. 
The  language  and  verse  of  Spenser  at  his  best  have  an 
ideal  lift  in  them,  and  there  is  scarce  any  of  our  poets 
who  can  so  hardly  help  being  poetical. 

It  was  this  instantly  felt  if  not  easily  definable  charm 
that  forthwith  won  for  Spenser  his  never-disputed  rank 
as  the  chief  English  poet  of  that  age,  and  gave  him  a 
popularity  which,  during  his  life  and  in  the  following 
generation,  was,  in  its  select  quality,  without  a  competi- 

*  "Ruins  of  Time."  It  is  perhaps  not  considering  too  nicely  to 
remark  how  often  this  image  of  icings  recurred  to  Spenser's  mind. 
A  certain  aerial  latitude  was  essential  to  the  large  circlings  of  his 
style. 

K 


162  SPENSER. 

tor.  It  may  be  thought  that  I  lay  too  much  stress  on 
this  single  attribute  of  diction.  But  apart  from  its 
importance  in  his  case  as  showing  their  way  to  the  poets 
who  were  just  then  learning  the  accidence  of  their  art, 
and  leaving  them  a  material  to  work  in  already  mellowed 
to  their  hands,  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  is  subtle 
perfection  of  phrase  and  that  happy  coalescence  of  music 
and  meaning,  where  each  reinforces  the  other,  that  define 
a  man  as  poet  and  make  all  ears  converts  and  partisans. 
Spenser  was  an  epicure  in  language.  He  loved  "  seld- 
seen  costly  "  words  perhaps  too  well,  and  did  not  always 
distinguish  between  mere  strangeness  and  that  novelty 
which  is  so  agreeable  as  to  cheat  us  with  some  charm 
of  seeming  association.  He  had  not  the  concentrated 
power  which  can  sometimes  pack  infinite  riches  in  the 
little  room  of  a  single  epithet,  for  his  genius  is  rather 
for  dilatation  than  compression.  *  But  he  was,  with  the 
exception  of  Milton  and  possibly  Gray,  the  most  learned 
of  our  poets.  His  familiarity  with  ancient  and  modern 
literature  was  easy  and  intimate,  and  as  he  perfected 
himself  in  his  art,  he  caught  the  grand  manner  and 
high-bred  ways  of  the  society  he  frequented.  But  even 
to  the  last  he  did  not  quite  shake  off  the  blunt  rusticity 
of  phrase  that  was  habitual  with  the  generation  that 
preceded  him.  In  the  fifth  book  of  the  "  Faery  Queen," 
where  he  is  describing  the  passion  of  Britomart  at  the 
supposed  infidelity  of  Arthegall,  he  descends  to  a  Teniers- 

*  Perhaps  his  most  striking  single  epithet  is  the  "sea-shouldering 
whales,''  B.  II.  12,  xxiii.  His  ear  seems  to  delight  in  prolongations. 
For  example,  he  makes  such  words  as  glorious,  gratious,  joyeous, 
havior,  chapelet  dactyles,  and  that,  not  at  the  end  of  verses,  where  it 
would  not  have  been  unusual,  but  in  the  first  half  of  them.  Milton 
contrives  a  break  (a  kind  of  heave,  as  it  were)  in  the  uniformity  of  his 
verse  by  a  practice  exactly  the  opposite  of  this.  He  also  shuns  a 
hiatus  which  does  not  seem  to  have  been  generally  dipleasing  to 
Spenser's  ear,  though  perhaps  in  the  compound  epithet  bees-alluring 
he  intentionally  avoids  it  by  the  plural  form. 


SPENSEK.  163 

like  realism,*  —  he  whose  verses  generally  remind  us  of 
the  dancing  Hours  of  Guido,  where  we  catch  but  a  glimpse 
of  the  real  earth  and  that  far  away  beneath.  But  his 
habitual  style  is  that  of  gracious  loftiness  and  refined 
luxury. 

He  first  shows  his  mature  hand  in  the  "  Muiopotmos," 
the  most  airily  fanciful  of  his  poems,  a  marvel  for  deli 
cate  conception  and  treatment,  whose  breezy  verse  seems 
to  float  between  a  blue  sky  and  golden  earth  in  imper 
ishable  sunshine.  No  other  English  poet  has  found  the 
variety  and  compass  which  enlivened  the  octave  stanza 
under  his  sensitive  touch.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  in  Clarion  the  butterfly  he  has  symbolized  himself, 
and  surely  never  was  the  poetic  temperament  so  pictur 
esquely  exemplified  :  — 

"Over  the  fields,  in  his  frank  lustiness, 
And  all  the  champain  o'er,  he  soared  light, 
And  all  the  country  wide  he  did  possess, 
Feeding  upon  their  pleasures  bounteously, 
That  none  gainsaid  and  none  did  him  envy. 

"  The  woods,  the  rivers,  and  the  meadows  green, 
With  his  air-cutting  wings  he  measured  wide, 

*  "  Like  as  a  wayward  child,  whose  sounder  sleep 
Is  broken  with  some  fearful  dream's  affright, 
With  froward  will  doth  set  himself  to  weep 
Ne  can  be  stilled  for  all  his  nurse's  might, 
But  kicks  and  squalls  and  shrieks  for  fell  despight, 
Now  scratching  her  and  her  loose  locks  misusing, 
Now  seeking  darkness  and  now  seeking  light, 
Then  craving  suck,  and  then  the  suck  refusing." 

He  would  doubtless  have  justified  himself  by  the  familiar  example 
of  Homer's  comparing  Ajax  to  a  donkey  in  the  eleventh  book  of  the 
Illiad.  So  also  in  the  "  Epithalamion  "  it  grates  our  nerves  to  hear, 

"  Pour  not  by  cups,  but  by  the  bellyful, 
Pour  out  to  all  that  wull." 

Such  examples  serve  to  show  how  strong  a  dose  of  Spenser's  aurum 
potabile  the  language  needed. 


1 64  SPENSER. 

Nor  did  he  leave  the  mountains  bare  unseen, 
Nor  the  rank  grassy  fens'  delights  untried  ; 
But  none  of  these,  however  sweet  they  been, 
Mote  please  his  fancy,  or  him  cause  to  abide; 
His  choiceful  sense  with  every  change  doth  flit ; 
No  common  things  may  please  a  wavering  wit. 

"  To  the  gay  gardens  his  unstaid  desire 
Him  wholly  carried,  to  refresh  his  sprights ; 
There  lavish  Nature,  in  her  best  attire, 
Pours  forth  sweet  odors  and  alluring  sights, 
And  Art,  with  her  contending  doth  aspire, 
To  excel  the  natural  with  made  delights  ;    ' 
And  all  that  fair  or  pleasant  may  be  found, 
In  riotous  excess  doth  there  abound. 

"  There  he  arriving,  round  about  doth  flie, 
From  bed  to  bed,  from  one  to  the  other  border, 
And  takes  survey  with  curious  busy 'eye, 
Of  every  flower  and  herb  there  set  in  order, 
Now  this,  now  that,  he  tasteth  tenderly, 
Yet  none  of  them  he  rudely  doth  disorder, 
Ne  with  his  feet  their  silken  leaves  displace, 
But  pastures  on  the  pleasures  of  each  place. 

"  And  evermore  with  most  variety 
And  change  of  sweetness  (for  all  change  is  sweet) 
He  casts  his  glutton  sense  to  satisfy, 
Now  sucking  of  the  sap  of  herbs  most  meet, 
Or  of  the  dew  which  yet  on  them  doth  lie, 
Now  in  the  same  bathing  his  tender  feet ; 
And  then  he  percheth  on  some  branch  thereby 
To  weather  him  and  his  moist  wings  to  dry. 

"And  then  again  he  turneth  to  his  play, 
To  spoil  [plunder]  the  pleasures  of  that  paradise ; 
The  wholesome  sage,  the  lavender  still  gray, 
Rank-smelling  rue,  and  cummin  good  for  eyes, 
The  roses  reigning  in  the  pride  of  May, 
Sharp  hyssop  good  for  green  wounds'  remedies 
Fair  marigolds,  and  bees-alluring  thyme, 
Sweet  marjoram  and  daisies  decking  prime, 

"Cool  violets,  and  orpine  growing  still, 
Embathed  balm,  and  cheerful  galingale, 


SPENSEK.  165 

Fresh  costmary  and  breathful  camomill, 
Dull  poppy  and  drink-quickening  setuale, 
Vein-healing  vervain  and  head-purging  dill, 
Sound  savory,  and  basil  hearty-hale, 
Fat  coleworts  and  comforting  perseline, 
Cold  lettuce,  and  refreshing  rosemarine.* 

"  And  whatso  else  of  virtue  good  or  ill, 
Grew  in  this  garden,  fetched  from  far  away, 
Of  every  one  he  takes  and  tastes  at  will, 
And  on  their  pleasures  greedily  doth  prey  ; 
Then,  when  lie  hath  both  played  and  fed  his  fill, 
In  the  warm  sun  he  doth  himself  embay, 
And  there  him  rests  in  riotous  suffisance 
Of  all  his  gladfulness  and  kingly  joyance. 

"  What  more  felicity  can  fall  to  creature 
Than'to  enjoy  delight  with  liberty, 
And  to  be  lord  of  all  the  works  of  nature  ? 
To  reign  in  the  air  from  earth  to  highest  sky, 
To  feed  on  flowers  and  weeds  of  glorious  feature, 
To  take  whatever  thing  doth  please  the  eye  ? 
Who  rests  not  pleased  with  such  happiness, 
Well  worthy  he  to  taste  of  wretchedness. " 

The  "  Muiopotmos "  pleases  us  all  the  more  that  it 
vibrates  in  us  a  string  of  classical  association  by  adding 
an  episode  to  Ovid's  story  of  Arachne.  "  Talking  the 
other  day  with  a  friend  (the  late  Mr.  Keats)  about  Dante, 
he  observed  that  whenever  so  great  a  poet  told  us  any 
thing  in  addition  or  continuation  of  an  ancient  story,  he 
had  a  right  to  be  regarded  as  classical  authority.  For 
instance,  said  he,  when  he  tells  us  of  that  characteristic 
death  of  Ulysses,  ....  we  ought  to  receive  the  informa 
tion  as  authentic,  and  be  glad  that  we  have  more  news 
of  Ulysses  than  we  looked  for."  f  We  can  hardly  doubt 

*  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  root  out  this  odorous  herb-garden, 
though  it  make  my  extract  too  long.  It  is  a  pretty  reminiscence  of 
his  master  Chaucer,  but  is  also  very  characteristic  of  Spenser  himself. 
He  could  not  help  planting  a  flower  or  two  among  his  serviceable 
plants,  and  after  all  this  abundance  he  is  not  satisfied,  but  begins  the 
next  stanza  with  "  And  whatso  else." 

t  Leigh  Hunt's  Indicator,  XVII. 


166  SPENSER. 

that  Ovid  would  have  been  glad  to  admit  this  exquisitely 
fantastic  illumination  into  his  margin. 

No  German  analyzer  of  aesthetics  has  given  us  so  con 
vincing  a  definition  of  the  artistic  nature  as  these  radiant 
verses.  "  To  reign  in  the  air  "  was  certainly  Spenser's 
function.  And  yet  the  commentators,  who  seem  never 
willing  to  let  their  poet  be  a  poet  pure  and  simple, 
though,  had  he  not  been  so,  they  would  have  lost  their 
only  hold  upon  life,  try  to  make  out  from  his  "  Mother 
Hubberd's  Tale  "  that  he  might  have  been  a  very  sensi 
ble  matter-of-fact  man  if  he  would.  For  my  own  part, 
I  am  quite  willing  to  confess  that  I  like  him  none  the 
worse  for  being  wH-practical,  and  that  my  reading  has 
convinced  me  that  being  too  poetical  is  the  rarest  fault 
of  poets.  Practical  men  are  not  so  scarce,  one  would 
think,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  the  tree  was  a  gainer 
when  the  hamadryad  flitted  and  left  it  nothing  but  ship- 
timber.  Such  men  as  Spenser  are  not  sent  into  the 
world  to  be  part  of  its  motive  power.  The  blind  old 
engine  would  not  know  the  difference  though  we  got  up 
its  steam  with  attar  of  roses,  nor  make  one  revolution 
more  to  the  minute  for  it.  What  practical  man  ever  left 
such  an  heirloom  to  his  countrymen  as  the  "Faery 
Queen  "  ? 

Undoubtedly  Spenser  wished  to  be  useful  and  in  the 
highest  vocation  of  all,  that  of  teacher,  and  Milton  calls 
him  "  our  sage  and  serious  poet,  whom  I  dare  be  known 
to  think  a  better  teacher  than  Scotus  or  Aquinas."  And 
good  Dr.  Henry  More  was  of  the  same  mind.  I  fear  he 
makes  his  vices  so  beautiful  now  and  then  that  we  should 
not  be  very  much  afraid  of  them  if  we  chanced  to  meet 
them ;  for  he  could  not  escape  from  his  genius,  which, 
if  it  led  him  as  philosopher  to  the  abstract  contempla 
tion  of  the  beautiful,  left  him  as  poet  open  to  every 
impression  of  sensuous  delight.  When  he  wrote  the 


SPENSER.  167 

"  Shepherd's  Calendar  "  he  was  certainly  a  Puritan,  and 
probably  so  by  conviction  rather  than  from  any  social 
influences  or  thought  of  personal  interests.  There  is  a 
verse,  it  is  true,  in  the  second  of  the  two  detached  can 
tos  of  "  Mutability," 

"Like  that  ungracious  crew  which  feigns  demurest  grace," 
which  is  supposed  to  glance  at  the  straiter  religionists, 
and  from  which  it  has  been  inferred  that  he  drew  away 
from  them  as  he  grew  older.  It  is  very  likely  that 
years  and  widened  experience  of  men  may  have  pro 
duced  in  him  their  natural  result  of  tolerant  wisdom 
which  revolts  at  the  hasty  destructiveness  of  inconsid 
erate  zeal.  But  with  the  more  generous  side  of  Puritan 
ism  I  think  he  sympathized  to  the  last.  His  rebukes  of 
clerical  worldliness  are  in  the  Puritan  tone,  and  as  severe 
a  one  as  any  is  in  "  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale,"  published 
in  1591.*  There  is  an  iconoclastic  relish  in  his  account 
of  Sir  Guyon's  demolishing  the  Bower  of  Bliss  that 
makes  us  think  he  would  not  have  regretted  the  plun 
dered  abbeys  as  perhaps  Shakespeare  did  when  he 
speaks  of  the  winter  woods  as  "  bare  ruined  choirs  where 
late  the  sweet  birds  sang  "  :  — 

"  But  all  those  pleasant  bowers  and  palace  brave 
Guyon  broke  down  with  rigor  pitiless, 
Ne  ought  their  goodly  workmanship  might  save 
Them  from  the  tempest  of  his  wrathfulness, 
But  that  their  bliss  he  tiirned  to  balefumess  ; 

*  Ben  Jonson  told  Drummond  "  that  in  that  paper  Sir  "W.  Raleigh 
had  of  the  allegories  of  his  Faery  Queen,  by  the  Blatant  Beast  the 
Puritans  were  imderstood ."  But  this  is  certainly  wrong.  There 
were  very  different  shades  of  Puritanism,  according  to  individual  tem 
perament.  That  of  Winthrop  and  Higginson  had  a  mellowness  of 
which  Endicott  and  Standish  were  incapable.  The  gradual  change  of 
Milton's  opinions  was  similar  to  that  which  I  suppose  in  Spenser. 
The  passage  in  Mother  Hubberd  may  have  been  aimed  at  the  Prot 
estant  clergy  of  Ireland  (for  he  says  much  the  same  thing  in  his  "  View 
of  the  State  of  Ireland  "),  but  it  is  general  in  its  terms. 


168  SPENSER. 

Their  groves  he  felled,  their  gardens  did  deface, 
Their  arbors  spoil,  their  cabinets  suppress, 
Their  banquet-houses  burn,  their  buildings  rase, 
And  of  the  fairest  late  now  made  the  foulest  place." 

But  whatever  may  have  been  Spenser's  religious  opin 
ions  (which  do  not  nearly  concern  us  here),  the  bent  of 
his  mind  was  toward  a  Platonic  mysticism,  a  supramun- 
dane  sphere  where  it  could  shape  universal  forms  out  of 
the  primal  elements  of  things,  instead  of  being  forced  to 
put  up  with  their  fortuitous  combinations  in  the  unwill 
ing  material  of  mortal  clay.  He  who,  when  his  singing 
robes  were  on,  could  never  be  tempted  nearer  to  the  real 
world  than  under  some  subterfuge  of  pastoral  or  allegory, 
expatiates  joyously  in  this  untrammelled  ether  :  — 

"  Lifting  himself  out  of  the  lowly  dust 
On  golden  plumes  up  to  the  purest  sky." 

Nowhere  does  his  genius  soar  and  sing  with  such  con 
tinuous  aspiration,  nowhere  is  his  phrase  so  decorously 
stately,  though  rising  to  an  enthusiasm  which  reaches 
intensity  while  it  stops  short  of  vehemence,  as  in  his 
Hymns  to  Love  and  Beauty,  especially  the  latter.  There 
is  an  exulting  spurn  of  earth  in  it,  as  of  a  soul  just  loosed 
from  its  cage.  I  shall  make  no  extracts  from  it,  for  it 
is  one  of  those  intimately  coherent  and  transcendentally 
logical  poems  that  "  moveth  altogether  if  it  move  at  all," 
the  breaking  off  a  fragment  from  which  would  maim  it 
as  it  would  a  perfect  group  of  crystals.  Whatever  there 
is  of  sentiment  and  passion  is  for  the  most  part  purely 
disembodied  and  without  sex,  like  that  of  angels,  —  a 
kind  of  poetry  which  has  of  late  gone  out  of  fashion, 
whether  to  our  gain  or  not  may  be  questioned.  Perhaps 
one  may  venture  to  hint  that  the  animal  instincts  are 
those  that  stand  in  least  need  of  stimulation.  Spenser's 
notions  of  love  were  so  nobly  pure,  so  far  from  those  of 
our  common  ancestor  who  could  hang  by  his  tail,  as  not 


SPENSER.  169 

to  disqualify  him  for  achieving  the  quest  of  the  Holy 
Grail,  and  accordingly  it  is  not  uninstructive  to  remem 
ber  that  he  had  drunk,  among  others,  at  French  sources 
not  yet  deboshed  with  absinthe*  Yet,  with  a  purity  like 
that  of  thrice-bolted  snow,  he  had  none  of  its  coldness. 
He  is,  of  all  our  poets,  the  most  truly  sensuous,  using 
the  word  as  Milton  probably  meant  it  when  he  said  that 
poetry  should  be  "  simple,  sensuous,  and  passionate."  A 
poet  is  innocently  sensuous  when  his  mind  permeates 
and  illumines  his  senses ;  when  they,  on  the  other  hand, 
muddy  the  mind,  he  becomes  sensual.  Every  one  of 
Spenser's  senses  was  as  exquisitely  alive  to  the  impres 
sions  of  material,  as  every  organ  of  his  soul  was  to  those 
of  spiritual  beauty.  Accordingly,  if  he  painted  the 
weeds  of  sensuality  at  all,  he  could  not  help  making 
them  "  of  glorious  feature."  It  was  this,  it  may  be  sus 
pected,  rather  than  his  "  praising  love,"  that  made  Lord 
Burleigh  shake  his  "  rugged  forehead."  Spenser's  gamut, 
indeed,  is  a  wide  one,  ranging  from  a  purely  corporeal 
delight  in  "  precious  odors  fetched  from  far  away  "  up 
ward  to  such  refinement  as 

"  Upon  her  eyelids  many  graces  sate 
Under  the  shadow  of  her  even  brows," 

where  the  eye  shares  its  pleasure  with  the  mind.  He 
is  court-painter  in  ordinary  to  each  of  the  senses  in 
turn,  and  idealizes  these  frail  favorites  of  his  majesty 
King  Lusty  Juventus,  till  they  half  believe  themselves 

*  Two  of  his  eclogues,  as  I  have  said,  are  from  Marot,  and  his  earli 
est  known  verses  are  translations  from  Bellay,  a  poet  who  was  charm 
ing  whenever  he  had  the  courage  to  play  truant  from  a  bad  school. 
We  must  not  suppose  that  an  analysis  of  the  literature  of  the  demi 
monde  will  give  us  all  the  elements  of  the  French  character.  It  has 
been  both  grave  and  profound  ;  nay,  it  has  even  contrived  to  be  wise 
and  lively  at  the  same  time,  a  combination  so  incomprehensible  by 
the  Teutonic  races  that  they  have  labelled  it  levity.  It  puts  them  out 
as  Nature  did  Fuseli. 


170  SPENSER. 

the  innocent  shepherdesses  into  which  he  travesties 
them.  * 

In  his  great  poem  he  had  two  objects  in  view  :  first, 
the  ephemeral  one  of  pleasing  the  court,  and  then  that 
of  recommending  himself  to  the  permanent  approval  of 
his  own  and  following  ages  as  a  poet,  and  especially  as 
a  moral  poet.  To  meet  the  first  demand,  he  lays  the 
scene  of  his  poem  in  contempoi-ary  England,  and  brings 
in  all  the  leading  personages  of  the  day  under  the  thin 
disguise  of  his  knights  and  their  squires  and  lady 
loves.  He  says  this  expressly  hi  the  prologue  to  the 
second  book :  — 

"  Of  Faery  Land  yet  if  he  more  inquire, 
By  certain  signs,  here  set  in  sundry  place, 
He  may  it  find  ;  .  .  .  . 
And  thou,  0  fairest  princess  under  sky, 
In  this  fair  mirror  mayst  behold  thy  face 
And  thine  own  realms  in  land  of  Faery." 

Many  of  his  personages  we  can  still  identify,  and  all  of 
them  were  once  as  easily  recognizable  as  those  of  Madem 
oiselle  de  Scudery.  This,  no  doubt,  added  greatly  to  the 
immediate  piquancy  of  the  allusions.  The  interest  they 
would  excite  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  King 
James,  in  1596,  wished  to  have  the  author  prosecuted 
and  punished  for  his  indecent  handling  of  his  mother, 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  under  the  name  of  Duessa.t  To 

*  Taste  must  be  partially  excepted.     It  is  remarkable  how  little 
eating  and  drinking  there  is  in  the  "Faery  Queen.'1     The  only  time 
he  fairly  sets  a  table  is  in  the  house  of  Malbecco,  where  it  is  necessary 
to  the  conduct  of  the  story.     Yet  taste  is  not  wholly  forgotten  :  — 
"  In.  her  left  hand  a  cup  of  gold  she  held, 
And  with  her  right  the  riper  fruit  did  reach, 
Whose  sappy  liquor,  that  with  fulness  sweld, 
Into  her  cup  she  scruzed  with  dainty  breach 
Of  her  fine  fingers  without  foul  impeach, 
That  so  fair  wine-press  made  the  wine  more  sweet. " 

13.  II.  c.  xii.  56. 

Taste  can  hardly  complain  of  unhandsome  treatment ! 
f  Had  the  poet  lived  longer,  he  might  perhaps  have  verified  his 


SPENSER.  171 

suit  the  wider  application  of  his  plan's  other  and  more 
important  half,  Spenser  made  all  his  characters  double 
their  parts,  and  appear  in  his  allegory  as  the  impersona 
tions  of  abstract  moral  qualities.  When  the  cardinal 
and  theological  virtues  tell  Dante, 

"  Noi  siam  qui  ninfe  e  in  ciel  siamo  stelle," 
the  sweetness  of  the  verse  enables  the  fancy,  by  a  slight 
gulp,  to  swallow  without  solution  the  problem  of  being 
in  two  places  at  the  same  time.  But  there  is  something 
fairly  ludicrous  in  such  a  duality  as  that  of  Prince  Arthur 
and  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  Arthegall  and  Lord  Grey,  and 
Belphoebe  and  Elizabeth. 

"  In  this  same  interlude  it  doth  befall 
That  I,  one  Snout  by  name,  present  a  wall." 

The  reality  seems  to  heighten  the  improbability,  already 
hard  enough  to  manage.  But  Spenser  had  fortunately 
almost  as  little  sense  of  humor  as  Wordsworth,*  or  he 
could  never  have  carried  his  poem  on  with  enthusiastic 
good  faith  so  far  as  he  did.  It  is  evident  that  to  him 
the  Land  of  Faery  was  an  unreal  world  of  picture  and 
illusion, 

"  The  world's  sweet  inn  from  pain  and  wearisome  turmoil," 

friend  Raleigh's  saying,  that  "  whosoever  in  writing  modern  history 
shall  follow  truth  too  near  the  heels,  it  may  haply  strike  out  his 
teeth."  The  passage  is  one  of  the  very  few  disgusting  ones  in  the 
"  Faery  Queen."  Spenser  was  copying  Ariosto  ;  but  the  Italian  poet, 
with  the  discreeter  taste  of  his  race,  keeps  to  generalities.  Spenser 
goes  into  particulars  which  can  only  be  called  nasty.  He  did  this, 
no  doubt,  to  pleasure  his  mistress,  Mary's  rival;  and  this  gives  us 
a  measure  of  the  brutal  coarseness  of  contemporary  manners.  It  be 
comes  only  the  more  marvellous  that  the  fine  flower  of  his  genius 
could  have  transmuted  the  juices  of  such  a  soil  into  the  purity  and 
sweetness  which  are  its  own  peculiar  properties. 

*  There  is  a  gleam  of  humor  in  one  of  the  couplets  of  "  Mother 
Hubberd's  Tale,"  where  the  Fox,  persuading  the  Ape  that  they  should 
disguise  themselves  as  discharged  soldiers  in  order  to  beg  the  more 
successfully,  says,  — 

"  Be  you  the  soldier,  for  you  likest  are 
For  manly  semblance  and  small  skill  in  war." 


172  SPENSER. 

in  which  he  could  shut  himself  up  from  the  actual,  with 
its  shortcomings  and  failures. 

"  The  ways  through  which  my  weary  steps  I  guide 

In  this  delightful  land  of  Faery 
Are  so  exceeding  spacious  and  wide, 
And  sprinkled  with  such  sweet  variety 
Of  all  that  pleasant  is  to  ear  and  eye, 
That  I,  nigh  ravisht  with  rare  thoughts'  delight, 

My  tedious  travail  do  forget  thereby, 
And,  when  I  'gin  to  feel  decay  of  might, 
It  strength  to  me  supplies,  and  cheers  my  dulled  spright." 

Spenser  -seems  here  to  confess  a  little  weariness ;  but 
the  alacrity  of  his  mind  is  so  great  that,  even  where  his 
invention  fails  a  little,  we  do  not  share  his  feeling  nor 
suspect  it,  charmed  as  we  are  by  the  variety  and  sweep 
of  his  measure,  the  beauty  or  vigor  of  his  similes,  the 
musical  felicity  of  his  diction,  and  the  mellow  versatility 
of  his  pictures.  In  this  last  quality  Ariosto,  whose  em 
ulous  pupil  he  was,  is  as  Bologna  to  Venice  in  the  com 
parison.  That,  when  the  personal  allusions  have  lost 
their  meaning  and  the  allegory  has  become  a  burden, 
the  book  should  continue  to  be  read  with  delight,  is 
proof  enough,  were  any  wanting,  how  full  of  life  and 
light  and  the  other-worldliness  of  poetry  it  must  be. 
As  a  narrative  it  has,  I  think,  every  fault  of  which  that 
kind  of  writing  is  capable.  The  characters  are  vague, 
and,  even  were  they  not,  they  drop  out  of  the  story  so 
often  and  remain  out  of  it  so  long,  that  we  have  forgot 
ten  who  they  are  when  we  meet  them  again ;  the  episodes 
hinder  the  advance  of  the  action  instead  of  relieving  it 
with  variety  of  incident  or  novelty  of  situation ;  the 
plot,  if  pfot  it  may  be  called, 

"  That  shape  has  none 
Distinguishable  in  member,  joint,  or  limb," 

recalls  drearily  our  ancient  enemy,  the  Metrical  Ro 
mance  ;  while  the  fighting,  which,  in  those  old  poems, 
was  tediously  sincere,  is  between  shadow  and  shadow, 


SPENSER.  173 

where  we  know  that  neither  can  harm  the  other,  though 
we  are  tempted  to  wish  he  might.  Hazlitt  bids  us  not 
mind  the  allegory,  and  says  that  it  won't  bite  us  nor 
meddle  with  us  if  we  do  not  meddle  with  it.  But  how 
if  it  bore  us,  which  after  all  is  the  fatal  question  ?  The 
truth  is  that  it  is  too  often  forced  upon  us  against  our 
will,  as  people  were  formerly  driven  to  church  till  they 
began  to  look  on  a  day  of  rest  as  a  penal  institution, 
and  to  transfer  to  the  Scriptures  that  suspicion  of  de 
fective  inspiration  which  was  awakened  in  them  by  the 
preaching.  The  true  type  of  the  allegory  is  the  Odys 
sey,  which  we  read  without  suspicion  as  pure  poem,  and 
then  find  a  new  pleasure  in  divining  its  double  mean 
ing,  as  if  we  somehow  got  a  better  bargain  of  our  author 
than  he  meant  to  give  us.  But  this  complex  feeling 
must  not  be  so  exacting  as  to  prevent  our  lapsing  into 
the  old  Arabian  Nights  simplicity  of  interest  again. 
The  moral  of  a  poem  should  be  suggested,  as  when 
in  some  mediaeval  church  we  cast  down  ou»  eyes  to 
muse  over  a  fresco  of  Giotto,  and  are  reminded  of  the 
transitoriness  of  life  by  the  mortuary  tablets  under  our 
feet.  The  vast  superiority  of  Bunyan  over  Spenser  lies 
in  the  fact  that  we  help  make  his  allegory  out  of  our 
own  experience.  Instead  of  striving  to  embody  abstract 
passions  and  temptations,  he  has  given  us  his  own  in  all 
their  pathetic  simplicity.  He  is  the  Ulysses  of  his  own 
prose-epic.  This  is  the  secret  of  his  power  and  his 
charm,  that,  while  the  representation  of  what  may  hap 
pen  to  all  men  comes  home  to  none  of  us  in  particular, 
the  story  of  any  one  man's  real  experience  finds  its  start 
ling  parallel  in  that  of  every  one  of  us.  The  very  home 
liness  of  Bunyan's  names  and  the  everydayness  of  his 
scenery,  too,  put  us  off  our  guard,  and  we  soon  find 
ourselves  on  as  easy  a  footing  with  his  allegorical  beings 
as  we  might  be  with  Adam  or  Socrates  in  a  dream.  In- 


174  SPENSER. 

deed,  he  has  prepared  us  for  such  incongruities  by  telliug 
us  at  setting  out  that  the  story  was  of  a  dream.  The 
long  nights  of  Bedford  jail  had  so  intensified  his  imagi 
nation,  and  made  the  figures  with  which  it  peopled  his 
solitude  so  real  to  him,  that  the  creatures  of  his  mind 
become  things,  as  clear  to  the  memory  as  if  we  had  seen 
them.  But  Spenser's  are  too  often  mere  names,  with 
no  bodies  to  back  them,  entered  on  the  Muses'  muster- 
roll  by  the  specious  trick  of  personification.  There  is, 
likewise,  in  Bunyan,  a  childlike  simplicity  and  taking- 
for-granted  which  win  our  confidence.  His  Giant  De 
spair,*  for  example,  is  by  no  means  the  Ossianic  figure 
into  which  artists  who  mistake  the  vague  for  the  sublime 
have  misconceived  it.  He  is  the  ogre  of  the  fairy-tales, 
with  his  malicious  wife ;  and  he  comes  forth  to  us  from 
those  regions  of  early  faith  and  wonder  as  something 
beforehand  accepted  by  the  imagination.  These  figures 
of  Bunyan's  are  already  familiar  inmates  of  the  mind, 
and,  if  there  be  any  sublimity  in  him,  it  is  the  daring 
frankness  of  his  verisimilitude.  Spenser's  giants  are 
those  of  the  later  romances,  except  that  grand  figure 
with  the  balances  in  the  second  Canto  of  Book  V.,  the 
most  original  of  all  his  conceptions,  yet  no  real  giant, 
but  a  pure  eidolon  of  the  mind.  As  Bunyan  rises  not 
seldom  to  a  natural  poetry,  so  Spenser  sinks  now  and 
then,  through  the  fault  of  his  topics,  to  unmistakable 
prose.  Take  his  description  of  the  House  of  Alma,t  for 
instance  :  — 

"  The  master  cook  was  cald  Concoction, 

A  careful  man,  and  full  of  comely  guise  ; 
The  kitchen-clerk,  that  hight  Digestion, 
Did  order  all  the  achates  in  seemly  wise." 

*  Bunyan  probably  took  the  hint  of  the  Giant's  suicidal  offer  of 
"knife,  halter,  or  poison,"  from  Spenser's  "swords,  ropes,  poison," 
in  Faery  Queen,  B.  I.  c.  ix.  1. 

t  Book  II.  c.  9. 


SPENSEK.  175 

And  so  on  through  all  the  organs  of  the  body.  The 
author  of  Ecclesiastes  understood  these  matters  better 
in  that  last  pathetic  chapter  of  his,  blunderingly  trans 
lated  as  it  apparently  is.  This,  I  admit,  is  the  worst 
failure  of  Spenser  in  this  kind ;  though,  even  here,  when 
he  gets  on  to  the  organs  of  the  mind,  the  enchantments 
of  his  fancy  and  style  come  to  the  rescue  and  put  us  in 
good-humor  again,  hard  as  it  is  to  conceive  of  armed 
knights  entering  the  chamber  of  the  mind,  and  talking 
with  such  visionary  damsels  as  Ambition  and  Shamefast- 
ness.  Nay,  even  in  the  most  prosy  parts,  unless  my 
partiality  deceive  me,  there  is  an  infantile  confidence  in 
the  magical  powers  of  Prosopopoeia  which  half  beguiles 
us,  as  of  children  who  play  that  everything  is  something 
else,  and  are  quite  satisfied  with  the  transformation. 

The  problem  for  Spenser  was  a  double  one  :  how  to 
commend  poetry  at  all  to  a  generation  which  thought  it 
effeminate  trifling,*  and  how  he,  Master  Edmund  Spen 
ser,  of  imagination  all  compact,  could  commend  his 
poetry  to  Master  John  Bull,  the  most  practical  of  man 
kind  in  his  habitual  mood,  but  at  that  moment  in  a 
passion  of  religious  anxiety  about  his  soul.  Omne  tulit 
punctum  qui  miscviit  utile  dulci  was  not  only  an  irrefra 
gable  axiom  because  a  Latin  poet  had  said  it,  but  it 
exactly  met  the  case  in  point.  He  would  convince  the 
scorners  that  poetry  might  be  seriously  useful,  and 
show  Master  Bull  his  new  way  of  making  fine  words 
butter  parsnips,  in  a  rhymed  moral  primer.  Allegory, 
as  then  practised,  was  imagination  adapted  for  begin 
ners,  in  words  of  one  syllable  and  illustrated  with  cuts, 
and  would  thus  serve  both  his  ethical  and  pictorial  pur 
pose.  Such  a  primer,  or  a  first  instalment  of  it,  he 
proceeded  to  put  forth;  but  he  so  bordered  it  with 

*  See  Sidney's  "Defence,"  and  Puttenham's  "Art  of  English  Po 
esy,"  Book  I.  c.  8. 


176  SPENSER. 

bright-colored  fancies,  he  so  often  filled  whole  pages 
and  crowded  the  text  hard  in  others  with  the  gay  frolics 
of  his  pencil,  that,  as  in  the  Grimani  missal,  the  holy 
function  of  the  book  is  forgotten  in  the  ecstasy  of  its 
adornment.  Worse  than  all,  does  not  his  brush  linger 
more  lovingly  along  the  rosy  contours  of  his  sirens  than 
on  the  modest  wimples  of  the  Wise  Virgins  ?  "  The 
general  end  of  the  book,"  he  tells  us  in  his  Dedication 
to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  "is  to  fashion  a  gentleman  of 
noble  person  in  virtuous  and  gentle  discipline."  But  a 
little  further  on  he  evidently  has  a  qualm,  as  he  thinks 
how  generously  he  had  interpreted  his  promise  of  cuts  : 
"To  some  I  know  this  method  will  seem .  displeasant, 
which  had  rather  have  good  discipline  delivered  plainly 
in  way  of  precepts  or  sermoned  at  large,*  as  they  use, 
than  thus  cloudily  enwrapped  in  allegorical  devices." 
Lord  Burleigh  was  of  this  way  of  thinking,  undoubt 
edly,  but  how  could  poor  Clarion  help  it  ?  Has  he  not 
said, 

"  And  whatso  else,  of  virtue  good  or  ill, 

Grew  in  that  garden,  fetcht  from  far  away, 
Of  every  one  he  takes  and  tastes  at  will, 

And  on  their  pleasures  greedily  doth  prey  "  ? 

One  sometimes  feels  in  reading  him  as  if  he  were  the 
pure  sense  of  the  beautiful  incarnated  to  the  one  end 
that  he  might  interpret  it  to  our  duller  perceptions. 
So  exquisite  was  his  sensibility, t  that  with  him  sensa 
tion  and  intellection  seem  identical,  and  we  "  can  almost 
say  his  body  thought."  This  subtle  interfusion  of  sense 
with  spirit  it  is  that  gives  his  poetry  a  crystalline  purity 

*  We  can  fancy  how  he  would  have  done  this  by  Jeremy  Taylor, 
who  was  a  kind  of  Spenser  in  a  cassock. 

+  Of  this  he  himself  gives  a  striking  hint,  where  speaking  in  his  own 
person  he  suddenly  breaks  in  on  his  narrative  with  the  passionate  cry, 
"Ah,  dearest  God,  me  grant  I  dead  be  not  defouled." 

Faery  Qiieen,  B.  I.  c.  x.  43. 


SPENSER.  177 

without  lack  of  warmth.  He  is  full  of  feeling,  and  yet 
of  such  a  kind  that  we  can  neither  say  it  is  mere  intel 
lectual  ^perception  of  what  is  fair  and  good,  nor  yet  asso 
ciate  it  with  that  throbbing  fervor  which  leads  us  to  call 
sensibility  by  the  physical  name  of  heart. 

Charles  Lamb  made  the  most  pithy  criticism  of  Spen 
ser  when  he  called  him  the  poets'  poet.  We  may  fairly 
leave  the  allegory  on  one  side,  for  perhaps,  after  all,  he 
adopted  it  only  for  the  reason  that  it  was  in  fashion, 
and  put  it  on  as  he  did  his  ruff,  not  because  it  was 
becoming,  but  because  it  was  the  only  wear.  The  true 
use  of  him  is  as  a  gallery  of  pictures  which  we  visit  as 
the  mood  takes  us,  and  where  we  spend  an  hour  or  two 
at  a  time,  long  enough  to  sweeten  our  perceptions,  not 
so  long  as  to  cloy  them.  He  makes  one  think  always 
of  Venice ;  for  not  only  is  his  style  Venetian,*  but  as 
the  gallery  there  is  housed  in  the  shell  of  an  abandoned 
convent,  so  his  in  that  of  a  deserted  allegory.  And 
again,  as  at  Venice  you  swim  iu  a  gondola  from  Gian 
Bellini  to  Titian,  and  from  Titian  to  Tintoret,  so  in  him, 
where  other  cheer  is  wanting,  the  gentle  sway  of  his 

*  Was  not  this  picture  painted  by  Paul  Veronese,  for  example  ? 

"  Arachne  figured  how  Jove  did  abuse 
Europa  like  a  bull,  and  on  his  back 
Her  through  the  sea  did  bear  : .  .  .  . 
She  seemed  still  back  unto  the  land  to  look, 
And  her  playfellows'  aid  to  call,  and  fear 
The  dashing  of  the  waves,  that  up  she  took 
Her  dainty  feet,  and  garments  gathered  near.  .... 
Before  the  bull  she  pictured  winged  Love, 
With  his  young  brother  Sport,  .... 
And  many  nymphs  about  them  nocking  round, 
And  many  Tritons  which  their  horns  did  sound. " 

Muiopotmos,  281-296. 

Spenser  begins  a  complimentary  sonnet  prefixed  to  the  **  Common 
wealth  and  Government  of  Venice"  (1599)  with  this  beautiful  verse, 

"  Fair  Venice,  flower  of  the  last  world's  delight." 

Perhaps  we  should  read  "  lost "  ? 

8*  L 


178  SPENSER. 

measure,  like  the  rhythmical  impulse  of  the  oar,  floats 
you  lullingly  along  from  picture  to  picture. 

"  If  all  the  pens  that  ever  poet  held 
Had  fed  the  feeling  of  their  master's  thoughts, 
And  every  sweetness  that  inspired  their  hearts 
Their  minds  and  muses  on  admired  themes, 
If  all  the  heavenly  quintessence  they  still 
From  their  immortal  flowers  of  poesy, 
If  these  had  made  one  poem's  period, 
And  all  combined  in  beauty's  worthiness  ; 
Yet  should  there  hover  in  their  restless  heads 
One  thought,  one  grace,  one  wonder  at  the  best, 
Which  into  words  no  virtue  can  digest."  * 

Spenser,  at  his  best,  has  come  as  near  to  expressing  this 
unattainable  something  as  any  other  poet.  He  is  so 
purely  poet  that  with  him  the  meaning  does  not  so 
often  modulate  the  music  of  the  verse  as  the  music 
makes  great  part  of  the  meaning  and  leads  the  thought 
along  its  pleasant  paths.  No  poet  is  so  splendidly 
superfluous  as  he ;  none  knows  so  well  that  in  poetry 
enough  is  not  only  not  so  good  as  a  feast,  but  is  a  beg 
garly  parsimony.  He  spends  himself  in  a  careless 
abundance  only  to  be  justified  by  incomes  of  immortal 

youth. 

"  Pensier  canuto  ne  molto  ne  poco 
Si  puo  quivi  albergare  in  alcun  cuore ; 
Non  entra  quivi  disagio  ne  inopia, 
Ma  vi  sta  ogn'or  col  corno  pien  la  Copia."  f 

This  delicious  abundance  and  overrunning  luxury  of 
Spenser  appear  in  the  very  structure  of  his  verse.  He 
found  the  ottava  rima  too  monotonously  iterative ;  so, 
by  changing  the  order  of  his  rhymes,  he  shifted  the 

*  Marlowe's  "  Tamburlaine,"  Part  I.  Act  V.  2. 

•)•  Grayheaded  Thought,  nor  much  nor  little,  may 
Take  up  its  lodging  here  in  any  heart ; 
Unease  nor  Lack  can  enter  at  this  door ; 
But  here  dwells  full-horned  Plenty  evermore. 

Orl.  Fur.,  c.  vL  73. 


SPENSER.  179 

couplet  from  the  end  of  the  stave,  where  it  always 
seems  to  put  on  the  brakes  with  a  jar,  to  the  middle, 
where  it  may  serve  at  will  as  a  brace  or  a  bridge ;  he 
found  it  not  roomy  enough,  so  first  ran  it  over  into  an 
other  line,  and  then  ran  that  added  line  over  into  an 
alexandrine,  in  which  the  melody  of  one  stanza  seems 
forever  longing  and  feeling  forward  after  that  which  is 
to  follow.  There  is  no  ebb  and  flow  in  his  metre  more 
than  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  but  wave  follows 
wave  with  equable  gainings  and  recessions,  the  one 
sliding  back  in  fluent  music  to  be  mingled  with  and 
carried  forward  by  the  next.  In  all  this  there  is  sooth- 
ingness  indeed,  but  no  slumberous  monotony ;  for  Spen 
ser  was  no  mere  metrist,  but  a  great  composer.  By  the 
variety  of  his  pauses  —  now  at  the  close  of  the  first  or 
second  foot,  now  of  the  third,  and  again  of  the  fourth 
—  he  gives  spirit  and  energy  to  a  measure  whose  ten 
dency  it  certainly  is  to  become  languorous.  He  knew 
how  to  make  it  rapid  and  passionate  at  need,  as  in  such 
verses  as, 

"  But  he,  my  lion,  and  my  noble  lord, 
How  does  he  find  in  cruel  heart  to  hate 
Her  that  him  loved  and  ever  most  adored 
As  the  God  of  my  life  ?    Why  hath  he  me  abhorred  ? "  * 

or  this, 

"  Come  hither,  come  hither,  0,  come  hastily  ! "  -\- 

Joseph  Warton  objects  to  Spenser's  stanza,  that  its 
"  constraint  led  him  into  many  absurdities."  Of  these 
he  instances  three,  of  which  I  shall  notice  only  one, 
since  the  two  others  (which  suppose  him  at  a  loss  for 
words  and  rhymes)  will  hardly  seem  valid  to  any  one 

*  B.  I.  c.  iii.  7.  Leigh  Hunt,  one  of  the  most  sympathetic  of  crit 
ics,  has  remarked  the  passionate  change  from  the  third  to  the  first 
person  in  the  last  two  verses. 

t  B.  II.  c.  viii.  3. 


180  SPENSER. 

who  knows  the  poet.  It  is  that  it  "obliged  him  to 
dilate  the  thing  to  be  expressed,  however  unimportant, 
with  trifling  and  tedious  circumlocutions,  namely,  Faery 
Queen,  II.  ii.  44  :  — 

'  Now  hath  fair  Phoebe  with  her  silver  face 

Thrice  seen  the  shadows  of  this  nether  world, 
Sith  last  I  left  that  honorable  place, 
In  which  her  royal  presence  is  enrolled.' 

That  is,  it  is  three  months  since  I  left  her  palace."  * 
But  Dr.  Warton  should  have  remembered  (what  he  too 
often  forgets  in  his  own  verses)  that,  in  spite  of  Dr. 
Johnson's  dictum,  poetry  is  not  prose,  and  that  verse 
only  loses  its  advantage  over  the  latter  by  invading  its 
province,  f  Verse  itself  is  an  absurdity  except  as  an 
expression  of  some  higher  movement  of  the  mind,  or  as 
an  expedient  to  lift  other  minds  to  the  same  ideal  level. 
It  is  the  cothurnus  which  gives  language  an  heroic  stat 
ure.  I  have  said  that  one  leading  characteristic  of 
Spenser's  style  was  its  spaciousness,  that  he  habitually 
dilates  rather  than  compresses.  But  his  way  of  meas 
uring  time  was  perfectly  natural  in  an  age  when  every 
body  did  not  carry  a  dial  in  his  poke  as  now.  He  is  the 

*  Observations  on  Faery  Queen,  Vol.  I.  pp.  158,  159.  Mr.  Hughes 
also  objects  to  Spenser's  measure,  that  it  is  "  closed  always  by  a  full- 
stop,  in  the  same  place,  by  which  every  stanza  is  made  as  it  were  a 
distinct  paragraph."  (Todd's  Spenser,  II.  xli.)  But  he  could  hardly 
have  read  the  poem  attentively,  for  there  are  numerous  instances  to 
the  contrary.  Spenser  was  a  consummate  master  of  versification,  and 
not  only  did  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare  learn  of  him,  but  I  have  little 
doubt  that,  but  for  the  "  Faery  Queen,"  we  should  never  have  had 
the  varied  majesty  of  Milton's  blank  verse. 

t  As  where  Dr.  Warton  himself  says  :  — 

"  How  nearly  had  my  spirit  past, 

Till  stopt  by  Metcalf's  skilful  hand, 
To  death's  dark  regions  wide  and  waste 

And  the  black  river's  mournful  strand, 
Or  to,"  etc., 

to  the  end  of  the  next  stanza.  That  is,  I  had  died  but  for  Dr.  Met- 
calf  s  boluses. 


SPENSER.  181 

last  of  the  poets,  who  went  (without  affectation)  by  the 
great  clock  of  the  firmament.  Dante,  the  miser  of  words, 
who  goes  by  the  same  timepiece,  is  full  of  these  round 
about  ways  of  telling  us  the  hour.  It  had  nothing  to 
do  with  Spenser's  stanza,  and  I  for  one  should  be  sorry 
to  lose  these  stately  revolutions  of  the  superne  ruote. 
Time  itself  becomes  more  noble  when  so  measured ;  we 
never  knew  before  of  how  precious  a  commodity  we  had 
the  wasting.  Who  would  prefer  the  plain  time  of  day 

to  this  1 

"  Now  when  Aldebaran  was  mounted  high 

Above  the  starry  Cassiopeia's  chair  " ; 
or  this  ? 

"  By  this  the  northern  wagoner  had  set 

His  seven-fold  team  behind  the  steadfast  star 
That  was  in  ocean's  waves  yet  never  wet, 

But  firm  is  fixt  and  sendeth  light  from  far 
To  all  that  in  the  wide  deep  wandering  are  " ; 
or  this  ? 

"  At  last  the  golden  oriental  gate 

Of  greatest  heaven  gan  to  open  fair, 
And  Phoebus,  fresh  as  bridegroom  to  his  mate, 

Came  dancing  forth,  shaking  his  dewy  hair 
And  hurls  his  glistening  beams  through  dewy  air." 

The  generous  indefiniteness,  which  treats  an  hour  more 
or  less  as  of  no  account,  is  in  keeping  with  that  sense 
of  endless  leisures  which  it  is  one  chief  merit  of  the 
poem  to  suggest.  But  Spenser's  dilatation  extends  to 
thoughts  as  well  as  to  phrases  and  images.  He  does 
not  love  the  concise.  Yet  his  dilatation  is  not  mere 
distension,  but  the  expansion  of  natural  growth  in  the 
rich  soil  of  his  own  mind,  wherein  the  merest  stick  of  a 
verse  puts  forth  leaves  and  blossoms.  Here  is  one  of 
his,  suggested  by  Homer  :  *  — 

*  Iliad,  XVII.  55  seqq.  Referred  to  in  Upton's  note  on  Faery 
Queen,  B.  I.  c.  vii.  32.  Into  what  a  breezy  couplet  trailing  off  with 
an  alexandrine  has  Homer's  iri/oiai  iravToiwv  avifjuav  expanded  !  Chap 
man  unfortunately  has  slurred  this  passage  in  his  version,  and  Pope 


182  SPENSEK. 

"  Upon  the  top  of  all  his  lofty  crest 

A  bunch  of  hairs  discolored  diversly, 

With  sprinkled  pearl  and  gold  full  richly  drest, 

Did  shake,  and  seemed  to  dance  for  jollity ; 

Like  to  an  almond-tree  ymounted  high 

On  top  of  green  Selinus  all  alone 

With  blossoms  brave  bedecked  daintily, 

Whose  tender  locks  do  tremble  every  one 
At  every  little  breath  that  under  heaven  is  blown." 

And  this   is   the   way  he   reproduces   five  pregnant 
verses  of  Dante  :  — 

"  Seggendo  in  piume 
In  fama  non  si  vien,  ne  sotto  coltre, 
Senza  la  qual  chi  sua  vita  consuma, 
Cotal  vestigio  in  terra  di  se  lascia 
Qual  fumo  in  aere  ed  in  acqua  la  schiuma."  * 

"  Whoso  in  pomp  of  proud  estate,  quoth  she, 

Does  swim,  and  bathes  himself  in  courtly  bliss, 

Does  waste  his  days  in  dark  obscurity 

And  in  oblivion  ever  buried  is ; 

Where  ease  abounds  it 's  eath  to  do  amiss  : 

But  who  his  limbs  with  labors  and  his  mind 

Behaves  with  cares,  cannot  so  easy  miss. 

Abroad  in  arms,  at  home  in  studious  kind, 
Who  seeks  with  painful  toil  shall  Honor  soonest  find. 

"  In  woods,  in  waves,  in  wars,  she  wonts  to  dwell, 
/     And  will  be  found  with  peril  and  with  pain, 
Ne  can  the  man  that  moulds  in  idle  cell 
Unto  her  happy  mansion  attain ; 

tittivated  it  more  than  usual  in  his.     I  have  no  other  translation  at 
hand.    Marlowe  was  so  taken  by  this  passage  in  Spenser  that  he  put 
it  bodily  into  his  Tamburlaine. 
*  Inferno,  XXIV.  46-52. 

"  For  sitting  upon  down, 
Or  under  quilt,  one  eometh  not  to  fame, 
Withouten  which  whoso  his  life  consumeth 
Such  vestige  leaveth  of  himself  on  earth 
As  smoke  in  air  or  hi  the  water  foam." 

Longfellow. 

It.  shows  how  little  Dante  was  read  during  the  last  century  that  none 
of  the  commentators  on  Spenser  notice  his  most  important  obligations 
to  the  great  Tuscan. 


SPENSER.  183 

Before  her  gate  high  God  did  Sweat  ordain, 
And  wakeful  watches  ever  to  abide  ; 
But  easy  is  the  way  and  passage  plain 
To  pleasure's  palace  ;  it  may  soon  be  spied, 
And  day  and  night  her  doors  to  all  stand  open  wide."* 

Spenser's  mind  always  demands  this  large  elbow-room. 
His  thoughts  are  never  pithily  expressed,  but  with  a 
stately  and  sonorous  proclamation,  as  if  under  the  open 
sky,  that  seems  to  me  very  noble.  For  example,  — 

"  The  noble  heart  that  harbors  virtuous  thought 
And  is  with  child  of  glorious-great  intent 
Can  never  rest  until  it  forth  have  brought 
The  eternal  brood  of  glory  excellent."  •]• 

One's  very  soul  seems  to  dilate  with  that  last  verse. 
And  here  is  a  passage  which  Milton  had  read  and  re 
membered  :  — 

"  And  is  there  care  in  Heaven  ?  and  is  there  love 
In  heavenly  spirits  to  these  creatures  base, 
That  may  compassion  of  their  evils  move  ? 
There  is  :  else  much  more  wretched  were  the  case 
Of  men  than  beasts  :  but  0,  the  exceeding  grace 
Of  highest  God,  that  loves  his  creatures  so, 
And  all  his  works  with  mercy  doth  embrace, 
That  blessed  angels  he  sends  to  and  fro, 

To  serve  to  wicked  man,  to  serve  his  wicked  foe  ! 

"  How  oft  do  they  their  silver  bowers  leave, 

To  come  to  succor  us  that  succor  want ! 

How  oft  do  they  with  golden  pinions  cleave 

The  fleeting  skies  like  flying  pursuivant, 

Against  foul  fiends  to  aid  us  militant ! 

They  for  us  fight,  they  watch  and  duly  ward, 

And  their  bright  squadrons  round  about  us  plant ; 

And  all  for  love  and  nothing  for  reward ; 
0,  why  should  heavenly  God  to  men  have  such  regard  ? "  J 

His  natural  tendency  is  to  shun  whatever  is  sharp  and 
abrupt.  He  loves  to  prolong  emotion,  and  lingers  in 

*  Faery  Queen,  B.  II.  c.  iii.  40,  41. 

t  Ibid.,  B.  I.  c.  v.  1. 

J  Ibid.,  B.  II.  c.  viii.  1,  2. 


184  SPENSER. 

his  honeyed  sensations  like  a  bee  in  the  translucent  cup 
of  a  lily.  So  entirely  are  beauty  and  delight  in  it  the 
native  element  of  Spenser,  that,  whenever  in  the  "  Faery 
Queen "  you  come  suddenly  on  the  moral,  it  gives  you 
a  shock  of  unpleasant  surprise,  a  kind  of  grit,  as  when 
one's  teeth  close  on  a  bit  of  gravel  in  a  dish  of  straw 
berries  and  cream.  He  is  the  most  fluent  of  our  poets. 
Sensation  passing  through  emotion  into  revery  is  a  prime 
quality  of  his  manner.  And  to  read  him  puts  one  in 
the  condition  of  revery,  a  state  of  mind  in  which  our 
thoughts  and  feelings  float  motionless,  as  one  sees  fish 
do  in  a  gentle  stream,  with  just  enough  vibration  of 
their  fins  to  keep  themselves  from  going  down  with  the 
current,  while  their  bodies  yield  indolently  to  all  its 
soothing  curves.  He  chooses  his  language  for  its  rich 
canorousness  rather  than  for  intensity  of  meaning.  To 
characterize  his  style  in  a  single  word,  I  should  call  it 
costly.  None  but  the  daintiest  and  nicest  phrases  will 
serve  him,  and  he  allures  us  from  one  to  the  other  with 
such  cunning  baits  of  alliteration,  and  such  sweet  lapses 
of  verse,  that  never  any  word  seems  more  eminent  than 
the  rest,  nor  detains  the  feeling  to  eddy  around  it,  but 
you  must  go  on  to  the  end  before  you  have  time  to  stop 
and  muse  over  the  wealth  that  has  been  lavished  on  you. 
But  he  has  characterized  and  exemplified  his  own  style 
better  than  any  description  could  do  :  — 

"  For  round  about  the  walls  yclothed  were 

With  goodly  arras  of  great  majesty, 

Woven  with  gold  and  silk  so  close  and  near 

That  the  rich  metal  lurked  privily 

As  faining  to  be  hid  from  envious  eye  ; 

Yet  here  and  there  and  everywhere,  unwares 

It  showed  itself  and  shone  unwillingly 

Like  to  a  discolored  snake  whose  hidden  snares 
Through  the  green  grass  his  long  bright-burnished  back  declares. "  * 

*  B.  III.  c.  xi.  28. 


SPENSER.  185 

And  of  the  lulling  quality  of  his  verse  take  this  as  a 
sample :  — 

"  And,  more  to  lull  him  iu  his  slumber  soft, 
A  trickling  stream  from  high  rock  tumbling  down 
And  ever  drizzling  rain  upon  the  loft, 
Mixt  with  the  murmuring  wind  much  like  the  soun 
Of  swarming  bees  did  cast  him  in  a  swoon. 
No  other  noise,  nor  peoples'  troublous  cries, 
As  still  are  wont  to  annoy  the  walled  town, 
Might  there  be  heard  :  but  careless  quiet  lies 

Wrapt  in  eternal  silence  far  from  enemies."  * 

In  the  world  into  which  Spenser  carries  us  there  is 
neither  time  nor  space,  or  rather  it  is  outside  of  and  in 
dependent  of  them  both,  and  so  is  purely  ideal,  or,  more 
truly,  imaginary;  yet  it  is  full  of  form,  color,  and  all 
earthly  luxury,  and  so  far,  if  not  real,  yet  apprehensible 
by  the  senses.  There  are  no  men  and  women  in  it,  yet 
it  throngs  with  airy  and  immortal  shapes  that  have  the 
likeness  of  men  and  women,  and  hint  at  some  kind  of 
foregone  reality.  Now  this  place,  somewhere  between 
mind  and  matter,  between  soul  and  sense,  between  the 
actual  and  the  possible,  is  precisely  the  region  which 
Spenser  assigns  (if  I  have  rightly  divined  him)  to  the 
poetic  susceptibility  of  impression,  — 

"  To  reign  in  the  air  from  the  earth  to  highest  sky." 
Underneath  every  one  of  the  senses  lies  the  soul  and 
spirit  of  it,  dormant  till  they  are  magnetized  by  some 
powerful  emotion.  Then  whatever  is  imperishable  in  us 
recognizes  for  an  instant  and  claims  kindred  with  some 
thing  outside  and  distinct  from  it,  yet  in  some  incon 
ceivable  way  a  part  of  it,  that  flashes  back  on  it  an  ideal 
beauty  which  impoverishes  all  other  Companionship. 
This  exaltation  with  which  love  sometimes  subtilizes  the 
nerves  of  coarsest  men  so  that  they  feel  and  see,  not  the 
thing  as  it  seems  to  others,  but  the  beauty  of  it,  the  joy 

*  B.  I.  c.  i.  41. 


186  SPENSER. 

of  it,  the  soul  of  eternal  youth  that  is  in  it,  would  ap 
pear  to  have  been  the  normal  condition  of  Spenser. 
While  the  senses  of  most  men  live  in  the  cellar,  his 
"  were  laid  in  a  large  upper  chamber  which  opened 
toward  the  sunrising." 

"  His  birth  was  of  the  womb  of  morning  dew, 
And  his  conception  of  the  joyous  prime." 

The  very  greatest  poets  (and  is  there,  after  all,  more 
than  one  of  them  1)  have  a  way,  I  admit,  of  getting 
within  our  inmost  consciousness  and  in  a  manner  be 
traying  us  to  ourselves.  There  is  in  Spenser  a  remote 
ness  very  different  from  this,  but  it  is  also  a  seclusion, 
and  quite  as  agreeable,  perhaps  quite  as  wholesome  in 
certain  moods  when  we  are  glad  to  get  away  from  our 
selves  and  those  importunate  trifles  which  we  gravely 
call  the  realities  of  life.  In  the  warm  Mediterranean  of 
his  mind  everything 

"Suffers  a  sea-change 
Into  something  rich  and  strange." 

He  lifts  everything,  not  beyond  recognition,  but  to  an 
ideal  distance  where  no  mortal,  I  had  almost  said  hu 
man,  fleck  is  visible.  Instead  of  the  ordinary  bridal 
gifts,  he  hallows  his  wife  with  an  Epithalamion  fit  for  a 
conscious  goddess,  and  the  "  savage  soil  "  *  of  Ireland 
becomes  a  turf  of  Arcady  under  her  feet,  where  the 
merchants'  daughters  of  the  town  are  no  more  at  home 
than  the  angels  and  the  fair  shapes  of  pagan  mythology 
whom  they  meet  there.  He  seems  to  have  had  a  com 
mon-sense  side  to  him,  and  could  look  at  things  (if  we 
may  judge  by  his  tract  on  Irish  affairs)  in  a  practical 

*  This  phrase  occurs  in  the  sonnet  addressed  to  the  Earl  of  Ormond 
and  in  that  to  Lord  Grey  de  Wilton  in  the  series  prefixed  to  the 
"  Faery  Queen."  These  sonnets  are  of  a  much  stronger  build  than 
the  "  Amoretti,"  and  some  of  them  (especially  that  to  Sir  John  Nor- 
ris)  recall  the  firm  tread  of  Milton's,  though  differing  in  structure. 


SPENSEK.  187 

and  even  hard  way ;  but  the  moment  he  turned  toward 
poetry  he  fulfilled  the  condition  which  his  teacher  Plato 
imposes  on  poets,  and  had  not  a  particle  of  prosaic  un 
derstanding  left.  His  fancy,  habitually  moving  about  in 
worlds  not  realized,  unrealizes  everything  at  a  touch. 
The  critics  blame  him  because  in  his  Prothalamion  the 
subjects  of  it  enter  on  the  Thames  as  swans  and  leave  it 
at  Temple  Gardens  as  noble  damsels  ;  but  to  those  who 
are  grown  familiar  with  his  imaginary  world  such  a 
transformation  seems  as  natural  as  in  the  old  legend  of 
the  Knight  of  the  Swan. 

"  Come  now  ye  damsels,  daughters  of  Delight, 

Help  quickly  her  to  dight : 
But  first  come  ye,  fair  Hours,  which  were  begot 
In  Jove's  sweet  paradise  of  Day  and  Night, .... 
And  ye  three  handmaids  of  the  Cyprian  Queen, 
The  which  do  still  adorn  her  beauty's  pride, 
Help  to  adorn  my  beautifulest  bride. 

Crown  ye  god  Bacchus  with  a  coronal, 

And  Hymen  also  crown  with  wreaths  of  vine, 

And  let  the  Graces  dance  unto  the  rest,  — 

For  they  can  do  it  best. 
The  whiles  the  maidens  do  their  carols  sing, 
To  which  the  woods  shall  answer  and  their  echo  ring." 

The  whole  Epithalamion  is  very  noble,  with  an  organ- 
like  roll  and  majesty  of  numbers,  while  it  is  instinct 
with  the  same  joyousness  which  must  have  been  the 
familiar  mood  of  Spenser.  It  is  no  superficial  and  tire 
some  merriment,  but  a  profound  delight  in  the  beauty 
of  the  universe  and  in  that  delicately  surfaced  nature 
of  his  which  was  its  mirror  and  counterpart.  Sadness 
was  alien  to  him,  and  at  funerals  he  was,  to  be  sure,  a 
decorous  mourner,  as  could  not  fail  with  so  sympathetic 
a  temperament ;  but  his  condolences  are  graduated  to 
the  unimpassioned  scale  of  social  requirement.  Even 
for  Sir  Philip  Sidney  his  sighs  are  regulated  by  the  offi- 


188  SPENSER. 

cial  standard.  It  was  in  an  unreal  world  that  bis  affec 
tions  found  their  true  object  and  vent,  and  it  is  in  an 
elegy  of  a  lady  whom  he  had  never  known  that  he 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  a  husband  whom  he  has  evapo 
rated  into  a  shepherd,  the  two  most  naturally  pathetic 
verses  he  ever  penned  :  — 

"  I  hate  the  day  because  it  lendeth  light 
To  see  all  things,  but  not  my  love  to  see."  * 

In  the  Epithalamion  there  is  an  epithet  which  has  been 
much  admired  for  its  felicitous  tenderness  :  — 

"  Behold,  whiles  she  before  the  altar  stands, 
Hearing  the  holy  priest  that  to  her  speakes 
And  blesseth  her  with  his  two  happy  hands." 

But  the  purely  impersonal  passion  of  the  artist  had 
already  guided  him  to  this  lucky  phrase.  It  is  addressed 
by  Holiness  —  a  dame  surely  as  far  abstracted  from  the 
enthusiasms  of  love  as  we  can  readily  conceive  of —  to 
Una,  who,  like  the  visionary  Helen  of  Dr.  Faustus,  has 
every  charm  of  womanhood,  except  that  of  being  alive 
as  Juliet  and  Beatrice  are. 

"  0  happy  earth, 
Whereon  thy  innocent  feet  do  ever  tread  ! ''  f 

Can  we  conceive  of  Una,  the  fall  of  whose  foot  would 
be  as  soft  as  that  of  a  rose-leaf  upon  its  mates  already 
fallen,  —  can  we  conceive  of  her  treading  anything  so 
sordid  ?  No  ;  it  is  only  on  some  unsubstantial  floor  of 
dream  that  she  walks  securely,  herself  a  dream.  And 
it  is  only  when  Spenser  has  escaped  thither,  only  when 
this  glamour  of  fancy  has  rarefied  his  wife  till  she  is 
grown  almost  as  purely  a  creature  of  the  imagination  as 
the  other  ideal  images  with  which  he  converses,  that  his 
feeling  becomes  as  nearly  passionate  —  as  nearly  human, 
I  was  on  the  point  of  saying  —  as  with  him  is  possible. 

*  Daphnaida,  407,  408. 

f  Faery  Queen,  B.  I.  c.  x.  9. 


SPENSER.  189 

I  am  so  far  from  blaming  this  idealizing  property  of  his 
mind,  that  I  find  it  admirable  in  him.  It  is  his  quality, 
not  his  defect.  Without  some  touch  of  it  life  would  be 
unendurable  prose.  If  I  have  called  the  world  to  which 
he  transports  us  a  world  of  unreality,  I  have  wronged 
him.  It  is  only  a  world  of  unrealism.  It  is  from  pots 
and  pans  and  stocks  and  futile  gossip  and  inch-long  poli 
tics  that  he  emancipates  us,  and  makes  us  free  of  that 
to-morrow,  always  coming  and  never  come,  where  ideas 
shall  reign  supreme.*  But  I  am  keeping  my  readers 
from  the  sweetest  idealization  that  love  ever  wrought :  — 

"  Unto  this  place  whenas  the  elfin  knight 
Approached,  him  seemed  that  the  merry  sound 
Of  a  shrill  pipe,  he  playing  heard  on  height, 
And  many  feet  fast  thumping  the  hollow  ground, 
That  through  the  woods  their  echo  did  rebound ; 
He  nigher  drew  to  wit  what  it  mote  be. 
There  he  a  troop  of  ladies  dancing  found 
Full  merrily  and  making  gladful  glee  ; 

And  in  the  midst  a  shepherd  piping  he  did  see. 

"  He  durst  not  enter  into  the  open  green 

For  dread  of  them  unwares  to  be  descried, 

For  breaking  of  their  dance,  if  he  were  seen  ; 

But  in  the  covert  of  the  wood  did  bide 

Beholding  all,  yet  of  them  unespied ; 

There  he  did  see  that  pleased  so  much  his  sight 

That  even  he  himself  his  eyes  envied, 

A  hundred  naked  maidens  lily-white, 
All  ranged  in  a  ring  and  dancing  in  delight. 

"  All  they  without  were  ranged  in  a  ring, 
And  danced  round  ;  but  in  the  midst  of  them 
Three  .other  ladies  did  both  dance  and  sing, 
The  while  the  rest  them  round  about  did  hem, 
And  like  a  garland  did  in  compass  stem. 

*  Strictly  taken,  perhaps  his  world  is  not  much  more  imaginary 
than  that  of  other  epic  poets,  Homei|(in  the  Iliad)  included.  He  who 
is  familiar  with  mediaeval  epics  will  We  extremely  cautious  in  drawing 
inferences  as  to  contemporary  manners  from  Homer.  He  evidently 
archaizes  like  the  rest. 


190  SPENSEK. 

And  in  the  midst  of  these  same  three  was  placed 
Another  damsel,  as  a  precious  gem 
Amidst  a  ring  most  richly  well  enchased, 
That  with  her  goodly  presence  all  the  rest  much  graced. 

"  Look  how  the  crown  which  Ariadne  wove 
Upon  her  ivory  forehead  that  same  day, 
That  Theseus  her  unto  his  bridal  bore, 
(When  the  bold  Centaurs  made  that  bloody  fray, 
With  the  fierce  Lapithes,  that  did  them  dismay) 
Being  now  placed  in  the  firmament, 
Through  the  bright  heaven  doth  her  beams  display, 
And  is  unto  the  stars  an  ornament, 

Which  round  about  her  move  in  order  excellent ; 

"  Such  was  the  beauty  of  this  goodly  band, 
Whose  sundry  parts  were  here  too  long  to  tell, 
But  she  that  in  the  midst  of  them  did  stand, 
Seemed  all  the  rest  in  beauty  to  excel, 
Crowned  with  a  rosy  garland  that  right  well 
Did  her  beseem.    And,  ever  as  the  crew 
About  her  danced,  sweet  flowers  that  far  did  smell, 
And  fragrant  odors  they  upon  her  threw ; 

But  most  of  all  those  three  did  her  with  gifts  endue. 

"Those  were  the  graces,  Daughters  of  Delight, 
Handmaids  of  Venus,  which  are  wont  to  haunt 
Upon  this  hill  and  dance  there,  day  and  night ; 
Those  three  to  men  all  gifts  of  grace  do  grant 
And  all  that  Venus  in  herself  doth  vaunt 
Is  borrowed  of  them  ;  but  that  fair  one 
That  in  the  midst  was  placed  paravant, 
Was  she  to  whom  that  shepherd  piped  alone, 

That  made  him  pipe  so  merrily,  as  never  none. 

"  She  was,  to  weet,  that  jolly  shepherd's  lass 
Which  piped  there  unto  that  merry  rout ; 
That  jolly  shepherd  that  there  piped  was 
Poor  Colin  Clout ;  (who  knows  not  Colin  Clout  ?) 
He  piped  apace  while  they  him  danced  about ; 
Pipe,  jolly  shepherd,  pipe  thou  now  apace, 
Unto  thy  love  that  made  thee  low  to  lout ; 
Thy  love  is  present  there  with  thee  in  place, 

Thy  love  is  there  advanced  to  be  another  Grace."* 

*  Faery  Queen,  B.  VI.  c.  x.  10  - 16. 


SPENSER.  191 

Is  there  any  passage  in  any  poet  that  so  ripples  and 
sparkles  with  simple  delight  as  this  1  It  is  a  sky  of 
Italian  April  full  of  sunshine  and  the  hidden  ecstasy  of 
larks.  And  we  like  it  all  the  more  that  it  reminds  us 
of  that  passage  in  his  friend  Sidney's  Arcadia,  where 
the  shepherd-boy  pipes  "  as  if  he  would  never  be  old." 
If  we  compare  it  with  the  mystical  scene  in  Dante,*  of 
which  it  is  a  reminiscence,  it  will  seem  almost  like  a  bit 
of  real  life ;  but  taken  by  itself  it  floats  as  unconcerned 
in  our  cares  and  sorrows  and  vulgarities  as  a  sunset 
cloud.  The  sound  of  that  pastoral  pipe  seems  to  come 
from  as  far  away  as  Thessaly  when  Apollo  was  keeping 
sheep  there.  Sorrow,  the  great  idealizer,  had  had  the 
portrait  of  Beatrice  on  her  easel  for  years,  and  every 
touch  of  her  pencil  transfigured  the  woman  more  and 
more  into  the  glorified  saint.  But  Elizabeth  Nagle  was 
a  solid  thing  of  flesh  and  blood,  who  would  sit  down  at 
meat  with  the  poet  on  the  very  day  when  he  had  thus 
beatified  her.  As  Dante  was  drawn  upward  from  heaven 
to  heaven  by  the  eyes  of  Beatrice,  so  was  Spenser  lifted 
away  from  the  actual  by  those  of  that  ideal  Beauty 
whereof  his  mind  had  conceived  the  lineaments  in  its 
solitary  musings  over  Plato,  but  of  whose  haunting  pres 
ence  the  delicacy  of  his  senses  had  already  premonished 
him.  The  intrusion  of  the  real  world  upon  this  super- 
sensual  mood  of  his  wrought  an  instant  disenchant 
ment  :  — 

"  Much  -wondered  Calidore  at  this  strange  sight 
Whose  like  before  his  eye  had  never  seen, 
And,  standing  long  astonished  in  sprite 
And  rapt  with  pleasance,  wist  not  what  to  ween, 
Whether  it  were  the  train  of  Beauty's  Queen, 
Or  Nymphs,  or  Fairies,  or  enchanted  show 
With  which  his  eyes  might  have  deluded  been, 
Therefore  resolving  what  it  was  to  know, 

Out  of  the  woods  he  rose  and  toward  them  did  go. 

*  Purgatorio,  XXIX.,  XXX. 


192  SPENSER. 

"  But  soon  as  he  appeared  to  their  view 
They  vanished  all  away  out  of  his  sight 
And  clean  were  gone,  which  way  he  never  knew, 
All  save  the  shepherd,  who,  for  fell  despite 
Of  that  displeasure,  broke  his  bagpipe  quite." 

Ben  Jonson  said  that  "he  had  consumed  a  whole 
night  looking  to  his  great  toe,  about  which  he  had  seen 
Tartars  and  Turks,  Romans  and  Carthaginians,  fight  in 
his  imagination  " ;  and  Coleridge  has  told  us  how  his 
"  eyes  made  pictures  when  they  were  shut."  This  is 
not  uncommon,  but  I  fancy  that  Spenser  was  more  habit 
ually  possessed  by  his  imagination  than  is  usual  even 
with  poets.  His  visions  must  have  accompanied  him 
"  in  glory  and  in  joy  "  along  the  common  thoroughfares 
of  life  and  seemed  to  him,  it  may  be  suspected,  more 
real  than  the  men  and  women  he  met  there.  His  "  most 
fine  spirit  of  sense  "  would  have  tended  to  keep  him  in 
this  exalted  mood.  I  must  give  an  example  of  the  sen- 
suousness  of  which  I  have  spoken  :  — 

"  And  in  the  midst  of  all  a  fountain  stood 
Of  richest  substance  that  on  earth  might  be, 
So  pure  and  shiny  that  the  crystal  flood 
Through  every  channel  running  one  might  see ; 
Most  goodly  it  with  curious  imagery 
Was  overwrought,  and  shapes  of  naked  boys, 
Of  which  some  seemed  with  lively  jollity 
To  fly  about,  playing  their  wanton  toys, 

Whilst  others  did  themselves  embay  in  liquid  joys. 

"  And  over  all,  of  purest  gold  was  spread 

A  trail  of  ivy  in  his  native  hue ; 

For  the  rich  metal  was  so  colored 

That  he  who  did  not  well  avised  it  view 

Would  surely  deem  it  to  be  ivy  true ; 

Low  his  lascivious  arms  adown  did  creep 

That  themselves  dipping  in  the  silver  dew 

Their  fleecy  flowers  they  tenderly  did  steep, 
Which  drops  of  crystal  seemed  for  wantonness  to  weep. 

"  Infinite  streams  continually  did  well 
Out  of  this  fountain,  sweet  and  fair  to  see, 


SPENSER.  193 

The  which  into  an  ample  laver  fell, 
And  shortly  grew  to  so  great  quantity 
That  like  a  little  lake  it  seemed  to  be 
Whose  depth  exceeded  not  three  cubits'  height, 
That  through  the  waves  one  might  the  bottom  see 
All  paved  beneath  with  jasper  shining  bright, 
That  seemed  the  fountain  in  that  sea  did  sail  upright. 

"  And  all  the  margent  round  about  was  set 

With  shady  laurel-trees,  thence  to  defend 

The  sunny  beams  which  on  the  billows  bet, 

And  those  which  therein  bathed  mote  offend. 

As  Guyon  happened  by  the  same  to  wend 

Two  naked  Damsels  he  therein  espied, 

Which  therein  bathing  seemed  to  contend 

And  wrestle  wantonly,  ne  cared  to  hide 
Their  dainty  parts  from  view  of  any  which  them  eyed. 

"  Sometimes  the  one  would  lift  the  other  quite 

Above  the  waters,  and  then  down  again 

Her  plunge,  as  overmastered  by  might, 

Where  both  awhile  would  covered  remain, 

And  each  the  other  from  to  rise  restrain  ; 

The  whiles  their  snowy  limbs,  as  through  a  veil, 

So  through  the  crystal  waves  appeared  plain : 

Then  suddenly  both  would  themselves  unhele, 
And  the  amorous  sweet  spoils  to  greedy  eyes  reveal. 

"  As  that  fair  star,  the  messenger  of  morn, 

His  dewy  face  out  of  the  sea  doth  rear ; 

Or  as  the  Cyprian  goddess,  newly  born 

Of  the  ocean's  fruitful  froth,  did  first  appear; 

Such  seemed  they,  and  so  their  yellow  hear 

Crystalline  humor  dropped  down  apace. 

Whom  such  when  Guyon  saw,  he  drew  him  near, 

And  somewhat  gan  relent  his  earnest  pace ; 
His  stubborn  breast  gan  secret  pleasance  to  embrace. 

"  The  wanton  Maidens  him  espying,  stood 

Gazing  awhile  at  his  unwonted  guise ; 

Then  the  one  herself  low  ducked  in  the  flood, 

Abashed  that  her  a  stranger  did  avise  ; 

But  the  other  rather  higher  did  arise, 

And  her  two  lily  paps  aloft  displayed, 

And  all  that  might  his  melting  heart  entice 

To  her  delights,  she  unto  him  bewrayed  ; 
The  rest,  hid  underneath,  him  more  desirous  made. 
9 


194  SPENSER. 

"  With  that  the  other  likewise  up  arose, 
And  her  fair  locks,  which  formerly  were  bound 
Up  in  one  knot,  she  low  adown  did  loose, 
Which  flowing  long  and  thick  her  clothed  around, 
And  the  ivory  in  golden  mantle  gowned  : 
So  that  fair  spectacle  from  him  was  reft, 
Yet  that  which  reft  it  no  less  fair  was  found ; 
So  hid  in  locks  and  waves  from  lookers'  theft, 

Naught  but  her  lovely  face  she  for  his  looking  left. 

"  Withal  she  laughed,  and  she  blushed  withal, 
That  blushing  to  her  laughter  gave  more  grace, 
And  laughter  to  her  blushing,  as  did  fall. 

Eftsoones  they  heard  a  most  melodious  sound, 
Of  all  that  mote  delight  a  dainty  ear, 
Such  as  at  once  might  not  on  living  ground, 
Save  in  this  paradise,  be  heard  elsewhere  : 
Right  hard  it  was  for  wight  which  did  it  hear 
To  read  what  manner  music  that  mote  be ; 
For  all  that  pleasing  is  to  living  ear 
Was  there  consorted  in  one  harmony ; 
Birds,  voices,  instruments,  winds,  waters,  all  agree. 

"The  joyous  birds,  shrouded  in  cheerful  shade, 
Their  notes  unto  the  voice  attempered  sweet ; 
The  angelical  soft  trembling  voices  made 
To  the  instruments  divine  respondence  mete  ; 
The  silver-sounding  instruments  did  meet 
With  the  base  murmur  of  the  water's  fall ; 
The  water's  fall  with  difference  discreet, 
Now  soft,  now  loud,  unto  the  wind  did  call ; 

The  gentle  warbling  wind  low  answered  to  all." 

Spenser,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Harvey,  had  said, 
"  Why,  a  God's  name,  may  not  we,  as  else  the  Greeks, 
have  the  kingdom  of  our  own  language  1 "  This  is  in  the 
tone  of  Bellay,  as  is  also  a  great  deal  of  what  is  said  in 
the  epistle  prefixed  to  the  "  Shepherd's  Calendar."  He 
would  have  been  wiser  had  he  followed  more  closely  Bel- 
lay's  advice  about  the  introduction  of  novel  words  : 
"  Fear  not,  then,  to  innovate  somewhat,  particularly  in 
a  long  poern,  with  modesty,  however,  with  analogy,  and 


SPENSER.  195 

judgment  of  ear ;  and  trouble  not  thyself  as  to  who 
may  think  it  good  or  bad,  hoping  that  posterity  will  ap 
prove  it,  —  she  who  gives  faith  to  doubtful,  light  to  ob 
scure,  novelty  to  antique,  usage  to  unaccustomed,  and 
sweetness  to  harsh  and  rude  things."  Spenser's  innova 
tions  were  by  no  means  always  happy,  as  not  always 
according  with  the  genius  of  the  language,  and  they 
have  therefore  not  prevailed.  He  forms  English  words 
out  of  French  or  Italian  ones,  sometimes,  I  think,  on  a 
misapprehension  of  their  true  meaning  ;  nay,  he  some 
times  makes  new  ones  by  unlawfully  grafting  a  scion  of 
Romance  on  a  Teutonic  root.  His  theory,  caught  from 
Bellay,  of  rescuing  good  archaisms  from  unwarranted 
oblivion,  was  excellent ;  not  so  his  practice  of  being 
archaic  for  the  mere  sake  of  escaping  from  the  common 
and  familiar.  A  permissible  archaism  is  a  word  or 
phrase  that  has  been  supplanted  by  something  less  apt, 
but  has  not  become  unintelligible ;  and  Spenser's  often 
needed  a  glossary,  even  in  his  own  day.*  But  he  never 
endangers  his  finest  passages  by  any  experiments  of  this 
kind.  There  his  language  is  living,  if  ever  any,  and  of 
one  substance  with  the  splendor  of  his  fancy.  Like  all 
masters  of  speech,  he  is  fond  of  toying  with  and  teasing 
it  a  little  ;  and  it  may  readily  be  granted  that  he  some 
times  "  hunted  the  letter,"  as  it  was  called,  out  of  all 
cry.  But  even  where  his  alliteration  is  tempted  to  an 
excess,  its  prolonged  echoes  caress  the  ear  like  the  fad 
ing  and  gathering  reverberations  of  an  Alpine  horn,  and 
one  can  find  in  his  heart  to  forgive  even  such  a  debauch 
of  initial  assonances  as 

"  Eftsoones  her  shallow  ship  away  did  slide, 
More  swift  than  swallow  shears  the  liquid  sky. " 

*  I  find  a  goodly  number  of  Yankeeisms  in  him,  such  as  idee  (not 
as  a  rhyme) ;  but  the  oddest  is  his  twice  spelling  dew  deow,  which  is 
just  as  one  would  spell  it  who  wished  to  phonetize  its  sound  in  rural 
New  England. 


196  SPENSER. 

Generally,  he  scatters  them  at  adroit  intervals,  remind 
ing  us  of  the  arrangement  of  voices  in  an  ancient  catch, 
where  one  voice  takes.up  the  phrase  another  has  dropped, 
and  thus  seems  to  give  the  web  of  harmony  a  firmer  and 
more  continuous  texture. 

Other  poets  have  held  their  mirrors  up  to  nature,  mir 
rors  that  differ  very  widely  in  the  truth  and  beauty  of 
the  images  they  reflect ;  but  Spenser's  is  a  magic  glass 
in  which  we  see  few  shadows  cast  back  from  actual 
life,  but  visionary  shapes  conjured  up  by  the  wizard's 
art  from  some  confusedly  remembered  past  or  some  im 
possible  future  ;  it  is  like  one  of  those  still  pools  of 
mediaeval  legend  which  covers  some  sunken  city  of  the 
antique  world  ;  a  reservoir  in  which  all  our  dreams  seem 
to  have  been  gathered.  As  we  float  upon  it,  we  see  that 
it  pictures  faithfully  enough  the  summer-clouds  that 
drift  over  it,  the  trees  that  grow  about  its  margin,  but 
in  the  midst  of  these  shadowy  echoes  of  actuality  we 
catch  faint  tones  of  bells  that  seem  blown  to  us  from 
beyond  the  horizon  of  time,  and  looking  down  into  the 
clear  depths,  catch  glimpses  of  towers  and  far-shining 
knights  and  peerless  dames  that  waver  and  are  gone. 
Is  it  a  world  that  ever  was,  or  shall  be,  or  can  be,  or 
but  a  delusion  ?  Spenser's  world,  real  to  him,  is  real 
enough  for  us  to  take  a  holiday  in,  and  we  may  well  be 
content  with  it  when  the  earth  we  dwell  on  is  so  often 
too  real  to  allow  of  such  vacations.  It  is  the  same 
kind  of  world  that  Petrarca's  Laura  has  walked  in  for 
five  centuries  with  all  ears  listening  for  the  music  of  her 
footfall. 

The  land  of  Spenser  is  the  land  of  Dream,  but  it  is 
also  the  land  of  Rest.  To  read  him  is  like  dreaming 
awake,  without  even  the  trouble  of  doing  it  yourself, 
but  letting  it  be  done  for  you  by  the  finest  dreamer  that 
ever  lived,  who  knows  how  to  color  his  dreams  like  life 


SPENSER.  197 

and  make  them  move  before  you  in  music.  They  seem 
singing  to  you  as  the  sirens  to  Guyon,  and  we  linger 
like  him  :  — 

"  0,  thou  fair  sou  of  gentle  Faery 

That  art  in  mighty  arms  most  magnified 

Above  all  knights  that  ever  battle  tried, 

0,  turn  thy  rudder  hitherward  awhile, 

Here  may  thy  storm-beat  vessel  safely  ride, 

This  is  the  port  of  rest  from  troublous  toil, 
The  world's  sweet  inn  from  pain  and  wearisome  turmoil.* 

"  With  that  the  rolling  sea,  resounding  swift 

In  his  big  bass,  them  fitly  answered, 

And  on  the  rock  the  waves,  breaking  aloft, 

A  solemn  mean  unto  them  measured, 

The  whiles  sweet  Zephyrus  loud  whisteled 

His  treble,  a  strange  kind  of  harmony 

Which  Guyon's  senses  softly  tickeled 

That  he  the  boatman  bade  row  easily 
And  let  him  hear  some  part  of  their  rare  melody." 

Despite  Spenser's  instinctive  tendency  to  idealize,  and 
his  habit  of  distilling  out  of  the  actual  an  ethereal 
essence  in  which  very  little  of  the  possible  seems  left, 
yet  his  mind,  as  is  generally  true  of  great  poets,  was 
founded  on  a  solid  basis  of  good-sense.  I  do  not  know 
where  to  look  for  a  more  cogent  and  at  the  same  time 
picturesque  confutation  of  Socialism  than  in  the  Second 
Canto  of  the  Fifth  Book.  If  I  apprehend  rightly  his 
words  and  images,  there  is  not  only  subtile  but  profound 
thinking  here.  The  French  Revolution  is  prefigured  in 
the  well-meaning  but  too  theoretic  giant,  and  Rousseau's 

*  This  song  recalls  that  in  Dante's  Purgatorio  (XIX.  19-24),  in 
which  the  Italian  tongue  puts  forth  all  its  siren  allurements.  Browne's 
beautiful  verses  ("Turn,  hither  turn  your  winged  pines")  were  sug 
gested  by  these  of  Spenser.  It  might  almost  seem  as  if  Spenser  had 
here,  in  his  usual  way,  expanded  the  sweet  old  verses  :  — 

"  Merry  sungen  the  monks  binnen  Ely 
When  Knut  king  rew  thereby  ; 
'  Roweth  knightes  near  the  lond, 
That  I  may  hear  these  nionkes  song.'  " 


198  SPENSEK. 

fallacies  exposed  two  centuries  in  advance.  Spenser 
was  a  conscious  Englishman  to  his  inmost  fibre,  and  did 
not  lack  the  sound  judgment  in  politics  which  belongs 
to  his  race.  He  was  the  more  English  for  living  in 
Ireland,  and  there  is  something  that  moves  us  deeply 
in  the  exile's  passionate  cry  :  — 

"  Dear  Country  !  0  how  dearly  dear 
Ought  thy  remembrance  and  perpetual  band     . 
Be  to  thy  foster-child  that  from  thy  hand 
Did  common  breath  and  uouriture  receive  ! 
How  brutish  is  it  not  to  understand 
How  much  to  her  we  owe  that  all  us  gave, 
That  gave  unto  us  all  whatever  good  we  have  ! " 

His  race  shows  itself  also  where  he  tells  us  that 

"  chiefly  skill  to  ride  seems  a  science 
Proper  to  gentle  blood," 

which  reminds  one  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury's  saying 
that  the  finest  sight  God  looked  down  on  was  a  fine  man 
on  a  fine  horse. 

Wordsworth,  in  the  supplement  to  his  preface,  tells 
us  that  the  "Faery  Queen"  "faded  before"  Sylvester's 
translation  of  Du  Bartas.  But  Wordsworth  held  a 
brief  for  himself  in  this  case,  and  is  no  exception  to  the 
proverb  about  men  who  are  their  own  attorneys.  His 
statement  is  wholly  unfounded.  Both  poems,  no  doubt, 
so  far  as  popularity  is  concerned,  yielded  to  the  graver 
interests  of  the  Civil  War.  But  there  is  an  appreciation 
much  weightier  than  any  that  is  implied  in  mere  popu 
larity,  and  the  vitality  of  a  poem  is  to  be  measured  by 
the  kind  as  well  as  the  amount  of  influence  it  exerts. 
Spenser  has  coached  more  poets  and  more  eminent  ones 
than  any  other  writer  of  English  verse.  I  need  say 
nothing  of  Milton,  nor  of  professed  disciples  like  Browne, 
the  two  Fletchers,  and  More.  Cowley  tells  us  that  he 
became  "  irrecoverably  a  poet "  by  reading  the  "  Faery 
Queen  "  when  a  boy.  Dryden,  whose  case  is  particularly 


SPENSEK.  199 

in  point  because  he  confesses  having  been  seduced  by 
Du  Bartas,  tells  us  that  Spenser  had  been  his  master  in 
English.  He  regrets,  indeed,  comically  enough,  that 
Spenser  could  not  have  read  the  rules  of  Bossu,  but 
adds  that  "  no  man  was  ever  born  with  a  greater  genius 
or  more  knowledge  to  support  it."  Pope  says,  "  There 
is  something  in  Spenser  that  pleases  one  as  strongly  in 
one's  old  age  as  it  did  in  one's  youth.  I  read  the  Faery 
Queen  when  I  was  about  twelve  with  a  vast  deal  of 
delight ;  and  I  think  it  gave  me  as  much  when  I  read 
it  over  about  a  year  or  two  ago."  Thomson  wrote  the 
most  delightful  of  his  poems  in  the  measure  of  Spenser ; 
Collins,  Gray,  and  Akenside  show  traces  of  him  ;  and  in 
our  own  day  his  influence  reappears  in  Wordsworth,  By 
ron,  Shelley,  and  Keats.  Landor  is,  I  believe,  the  only 
poet  who  ever  found  him  tedious.  Spenser's  mere  man 
ner  has  not  had  so  many  imitators  as  Milton's,  but  no 
other  of  our  poets  has  given  an  impulse,  and  in  the  right 
direction  also,  to  so  many  and  so  diverse  minds  ;  above 
all,  no  other  has  given  to  so  many  young  souls  a  con 
sciousness  of  their  wings  and  a  delight  in  the  use  of 
them.  He  is  a  standing  protest  against  the  tyranny  of 
Commonplace,  and  sows  the  seeds  of  a  noble  discontent 
with  prosaic  views  of  life  and  the  dull  uses  to  which  it 
may  be  put. 

Three  of  Spenser's  own  verses  best  characterize  the 
feeling  his  poetry  gives  us  :  — 

"  Among  wide  waves  set  like  a  little  nest," 
"  Wrapt  in  eternal  silence  far  from  enemies," 
"  The  world's  sweet  inn  from  pain  and  wearisome  turmoil." 

We  are  wont  to  apologize  for  the  grossness  of  our  favor 
ite  authors  sometimes  by  saying  that  their  age  was  to 
blame  and  not  they ;  and  the  excuse  is  a  good  one,  for 
often  it  is  the  frank  word  that  shocks  us  while  we  toler- 


200  SPENSEK. 

ate  the  thing.  Spenser  needs  no  such  extenuations. 
No  man  can  read  the  "  Faery  Queen  "  and  be  anything 
but  the  better  for  it.  Through  that  rude  age,  when  Maids 
of  Honor  drank  beer  for  breakfast  and  Hamlet  could  say 
a  gross  thing  to  Ophelia,  he  passes  serenely  abstracted 
and  high,  the  Don  Quixote  of  poets.  Whoever  can  en 
dure  unmixed  delight,  whoever  can  tolerate  music  and 
painting  and  poetry  all  in  one,  whoever  wishes  to  be  rid 
of  thought  and  to  let  the  busy  anvils  of  the  brain  be 
silent  for  a  time,  let  him  read  in  the  "  Faery  Queen." 
There  is  the  land  of  pure  heart's  ease,  where  no  ache  or 
sorrow  of  spirit  can  enter. 


WORDSWORTH. 


A  GENERATION  has  now  passed  away  since  Wordsworth 
was  laid  with  the  family  in  the  churchyard  at  (jrasmere.* 
Perhaps  it  is  hardly  yet  time  to  take  a  perfectly  impar 
tial  measure  of  his  value  as  a  poet.  To  do  this  is  espe 
cially  hard  for  those  who  are  old  enough  to  remember 
the  last  shot  which  the  foe  was  sullenly  firing  in  that 
long  war  of  critics  which  began  when  he  published  his 
manifesto  as  Pretender,  and  which  came  to  a  pause 
rather  than  end  when  they  flung  up  their  caps  with  the 
rest  at  his  final  coronation.  Something  of  the  intensity 
of  the  odium  theologicum  (if  indeed  the  cestheticum  be 
not  in  these  days  the  more  bitter  of  the  two)  entered 
into  the  conflict.  The  Wordsworthians  were  a  sect, 
who,  if  they  had  the  enthusiasm,  had  also  not  a  little 
of  the  exclusiveness  and  partiality  to  which  sects  are 
liable.  The  verses  of  the  master  had  for  them  the 
virtue  of  religious  canticles  stimulant  of  zeal  and  not 
amenable  to  the  ordinary  tests  of  cold-blooded  criticism. 
Like  the  hymns  of  the  Huguenots  and  Covenanters, 
they  were  songs  of  battle  no  less  than  of  worship,  and 

*  "  I  pay  many  little  visits  to  the  family  in  the  churchyard  at  Gras- 
mere,"  writes  James  Dixon  (an  old  servant  of  Wordsworth)  to  Crabb 
Robinson,  with  a  simple,  one  might  almost  say  canine  pathos,  thirteen 
years  after  his  master's  death.  Wordsworth  was  always  considerate 
and  kind  with  his  servants,  Robinson  tells  us. 
9* 


202  WOKDSWORTH. 

the  combined  ardors  of  conviction  and  conflict  lent  them 
a  fire  that  was  not  naturally  their  own.  As  we  read 
them  now,  that  virtue  of  the  moment  is  gone  out  of 
them,  and  whatever  of  Dr.  Wattsiuess  there  is  gives  us 
a  slight  shock  of  disenchantment.  It  is  something  like 
the  difference  between  the  Marseillaise  sung  by  armed 
propagandists  on  the  edge  of  battle,  or  by  Brissotins  in 
the  tumbrel,  and  the  words  of  it  read  coolly  in  the 
closet,  or  recited  with  the  factitious  frenzy  of  Therese. 
It  was  natural  in  the  early  days  of  Wordsworth's  career 
to  dwell  most  fondly  on  those  profounder  qualities  to 
appreciate  which  settled  in  some  sort  the  measure  of  a 
man's  right  to  judge  of  poetry  at  all.  But  now  we  must 
admit  the  shortcomings,  the  failures,  the  defects,  as  no 
less  essential  elements  in  forming  a  sound  judgment  as 
to  whether  the  seer  and  artist  were  so  united  in  him  as 
to  justify  the  claim  first  put  in  by  himself  and  after 
wards  maintained  by  his  sect  to  a  place  beside  the  few 
great  poets  who  exalt  men's  minds,  and  give  a  right 
direction  and  safe  outlet  to  their  passions  through  the 
imagination,  while  insensibly  helping  them  toward  bal 
ance  of  character  and  serenity  of  judgment  by  stimulat 
ing  their  sense  of  proportion,  form,  and  the  nice  adjust 
ment  of  means  to  ends.  In  none  of  our  poets  has  the 
constant  propulsion  of  an  unbending  will,  and  the  con 
centration  of  exclusive,  if  I  must  not  say  somewhat 
'narrow,  sympathies  done  so  much  to  make  the  original 
endowment  of  nature  effective,  and  in  none  accordingly 
does  the  biography  throw  so  much  light  on  the  works, 
nor  enter  so  largely  into  their  composition  as  an  element 
whether  of  power  or  of  weakness.  Wordsworth  never 
saw,  and  I  think  never  wished  to  see,  beyond  the  limits 
of  his  own  consciousness  and  experience.  He  early  con 
ceived  himself  to  be,  and  through  life  was  confirmed  by 
circumstances  in  the  faith  that  he  was,  a  "  dedicated 


WORDSWORTH.  203 

spirit,"  *  a  state  of  mind  likely  to  further  an  intense  but 
at  the  same  time  one-sided  development  of  the  intellec 
tual  powers.  The  solitude  in  which  the  greater  part  of 
his  mature  life  was  passed,  while  it  doubtless  ministered 
to  the  passionate  intensity  of  his  musings  upon  man  and 
nature,  was,  it  may  be  suspected,  harmful  to  him  as  an 
artist,  by  depriving  him  of  any  standard  of  proportion 
outside  himself  by  which  to  test  the  comparative  value 
of  his  thoughts,  and  by  rendering  him  more  and  more 
incapable  of  that  urbanity  of  mind  which  could  be 
gained  only  by  commerce  with  men  more  nearly  on  his 
own  level,  and  which  gives  tone  without  lessening  indi 
viduality.  Wordsworth  never  quite  saw  the  distinction 
between  the  eccentric  and  the  original.  For  what  we 
call  originality  seems  not  so  much  anything  peculiar, 
much  less  anything  odd,  but  that  quality  in  a  man 
which  touches  human  nature  at  most  points  of  its  cir 
cumference,  which  reinvigorates  the  consciousness  of  our 
own  powers  by  recalling  and  confirming  our  own  un 
valued  sensations  and  perceptions,  gives  classic  shape  to 
our  own  amorphous  imaginings,  and  adequate  utterance 
to  our  own  stammering  conceptions  or  emotions.  The 
poet's  office  is  to  be  a  Voice,  not  of  one  crying  in  the 
wilderness  to  a  knot  of  already  magnetized  acolytes,  but 
singing  amid  the  throng  of  men  and  lifting  their  com 
mon  aspirations  and  sympathies  (so  first  clearly  revealed 
to  themselves)  on  the  wings  of  his  song  to  a  purer  ether 
and  a  wider  reach  of  view.  We  cannot,  if  we  would, 
read  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  as  mere  poetry ;  at  every 

*  In  the  Prelude  he  attributes  this  consecration  to  a  sunrise  seen 
(during  a  college  vacation)  as  he  walked  homeward  from  some  village 
festival  where  he  had  danced  all  night :  — 

"  My  heart  was  full ;  I  made  no  vows,  but  vows 
Were  then  made  for  me ;  bond  unknown  to  me 
Was  given  that  I  should  be,  else  sinning  greatly, 
A  dedicated  Spirit. "  —  B.  IV. 


204  WORDSWORTH. 

other  page  we  find  ourselves  entangled  in  a  problem  of 
aesthetics.  The  world-old  question  of  matter  and  form, 
of  whether  nectar  is  of  precisely  the  same  flavor  when 
served  to  us  from  a  Grecian  chalice  or  from  any  jug  of 
ruder  pottery,  comes  up  for  decision  anew.  The  Teu 
tonic  nature  has  always  shown  a  sturdy  preference  of 
the  solid  bone  with  a  marrow  of  nutritious  moral  to  any 
shadow  of  the  same  on  the  flowing  mirror  of  sense. 
Wordsworth  never  lets  us  long  forget  the  deeply  rooted 
stock  from  which  he  sprang,  —  men  ben  del  lui. 

WILLIAM  WOBDSWORTH'  was  born  at  Cockermouth  in 
Cumberland  on  the  7th  of  April,  1770,  the  second  of 
five  children.  His  father  was  John  Wordsworth,  an 
attorney-at-law,  and  agent  of  Sir  James  Lowther,  after 
wards  first  Earl  of  Lonsdale.  His  mother  was  Anne 
Cookson,  the  daughter  of  a  mercer  in  Penrith.  His 
paternal  ancestors  had  been  settled  immemorially  at 
Penistone  in  Yorkshire,  whence  his  grandfather  had 
emigrated  to  Westmoreland.  His  mother,  a  woman  of 
piety  and  wisdom,  died  in  March,  1778,  being  then  in 
her  thirty-second  year.  His  father,  who  never  entirely 
cast  off"  the  depression  occasioned  by  her  death,  survived 
her  but  five  years,  dying  in  December,  1783,  when  Wil 
liam  was  not  quite  fourteen  years  old. 

The  poet's  early  childhood  was  passed  partly  at  Cock 
ermouth,  and  partly  with  his  maternal  grandfather  at 
Penrith.  His  first  teacher  appears  to  have  been  Mrs. 
Anne  Birkett,  a  kind  of  Shenstone's  Schoolmistress,  who 
practised  the  memory  of  her  pupils,  teaching  them 
chiefly  by  rote,  and  not  endeavoring  to  cultivate  their 
reasoning  faculties,  a  process  by  which  children  are  apt 
to  be  converted  from  natural  logicians  into  impertinent 
sophists.  Among  his  schoolmates  here  was  Mary  Hutch- 
inson,  who  afterwards  became  his  wife. 


WORDSWOKTH.  205 

In  1778  he  was  sent  to  a  school  founded  by  Edwin 
Sandys,  Archbishop  of  York,  in  the  year  1585,  at 
Hawkshead  in  Lancashire.  Hawkshead  is  a  small  mar 
ket-town  in  the  vale  of  Esthwaite,  about  a  third  of  a 
mile  northwest  of  the  lake.  Here  Wordsworth  passed 
nine  years,  among  a  people  of  simple  habits  and  scenery 
of  a  sweet  and  pastoral  dignity.  His  earliest  intimacies 
were  with  the  mountains,  lakes,  and  streams  of  his  native 
district,  and  the  associations  with  which  his  mind  was 
stored  during  its  most  impressible  period  were  noble  and 
pure.  The  boys  were  boarded  among  the  dames  of  the 
village,  thus  enjoying  a  freedom  from  scholastic  restraints, 
which  could  be  nothing  but  beneficial  in  a  place  where 
the  temptations  were  only  to  sports  that  hardened  the 
body,  while  they  fostered  a  love  of  nature  in  the  spirit 
and  habits  of  observation  in  the  mind.  Wordsworth's 
ordinary  amusements  here  were  hunting  and  fishing, 
rowing,  skating,  and  long  walks  around  the  lake  and 
among  the  hills,  with  an  occasional  scamper  on  horse 
back.*  His  life  as  a  school-boy  was  favorable  also  to  his 
poetic  development,  in  being  identified  with  that  of  the 
people  among  whom  he  lived.  Among  men  of  simple 
habits,  and  where  there  are  small  diversities  of  condition, 
the  feelings  and  passions  are  displayed  with  less  restraint, 
and  the  young  poet  grew  acquainted  with  that  primal 
human  basis  of  character  where  the  Muse  finds  firm  foot 
hold,  and  to  which  he  ever  afterward  cleared  his  way 
through  all  the  overlying  drift  of  conventionalism.  The 
dalesmen  were  a  primitive  and  hardy  race  who  kept  alive 
the  traditions  and  often  the  habits  of  a  more  picturesque 
time.  A  common  level  of  interests  and  social  standing 
fostered  imconventional  ways  of  thought  and  speech,  and 
friendly  human  sympathies.  Solitude  induced  reflection, 
a  reliance  of  the  mind  on  its  own  resources,  and  individ- 
*  Prelude,  Book  II. 


206  WOKDSWORTH. 

uality  of  character.  Where  everybody  knew  everybody, 
and  everybody's  father  had  known  everybody's  father, 
the  interest  of  man  in  man  was  not  likely  to  become  a 
matter  of  cold  hearsay  and  distant  report.  When  death 
knocked  at  any  door  in  the  hamlet,  there  was  an  echo 
from  every  fireside,  and  a  wedding  dropt  its  white 
flowers  at  every  threshold.  There  was  not  a  grave  in 
the  churchyard  but  had  its  story ;  not  a  crag  or  glen  or 
aged  tree  untouched  with  some  ideal  hue  of  legend.  It 
was  here  that  Wordsworth  learned  that  homely  human 
ity  which  gives  such  depth  and  sincerity  to  his  poems. 
Travel,  society,  culture,  nothing  could  obliterate  the 
deep  trace  of  that  early  training  which  enables  him  to 
speak  directly  to  the  primitive  instincts  of  man.  He  was 
apprenticed  early  to  the  difficult  art  of  being  himself. 

At  school  he  wrote  some  task- verses  on  subjects  im 
posed  by  the  master,  and  also  some  voluntaries  of  his 
own,  equally  undistinguished  by  any  peculiar  merit. 
But  he  seems  to  have  made  up  his  mind  as  early  as  in 
his  fourteenth  year  to  become  a  poet.*  "  It  is  record 
ed,"  says  his  biographer  vaguely,  "  that  the  poet's  father 
set  him  very  early  to  learn  portions  of  the  best  English 
poets  by  heart,  so  that  at  an  early  age  he  could  repeat 
large  portions  of  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Spenser."  t 

The  great  event  of  Wordsworth's  school-days  was  the 
death  of  his  father,  who  left  what  may  be  called  a  hypo 
thetical  estate,  consisting  chiefly  of  claims  upon  the  first 
Earl  of  Lonsdale,  the  payment  of  which,  though  their 
justice  was  acknowledged,  that  nobleman  contrived  in 

*  "I  to  the  muses  have  been  bound, 

These  fourteen  years,  by  strong  indentures." 

Idiot  Boy  (1798). 

t  I  think  this  more  than  doubtful,  for  I  find  no  traces  of  the  influ 
ence  of  any  of  these  poets  in  his  earlier  writings.  Goldsmith  was  evi 
dently  his  model  in  the  Descriptive  Sketches  and  the  Evening  Walk. 
I  speak  of  them  as  originally  printed. 


WORDSWORTH.  207 

some  unexplained  way  to  elude  so  long  as  he  lived.  In 
October,  1787,  he  left  school  for  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge.  He  was  already,  we  are  told,  a  fair  Latin 
scholar,  and  had  made  some  progress  in  mathematics. 
The  earliest  books  we  hear  of  his  reading  were  Don 
Quixote,  Gil  Bias,  Gulliver's  Travels,  and  the  Tale  of 
a  Tub ;  but  at  school  he  had  also  become  familiar  with 
the  works  of  some  English  poets,  particularly  Goldsmith 
and  Gray,  of  whose  poems  he  had  learned  many  by 
heart.  What  is  more  to  the  purpose,  he  had  become, 
without  knowing  it,  a  lover  of  Nature  in  all  her  moods, 
and  the  same  mental  necessities  of  a  solitary  life  which 
compel  men  to  an  interest  in  the  transitory  phenomena 
of  scenery,  had  made  him  also  studious  of  the  move 
ments  of  his  own  mind,  and  the  mutual  interaction  and 
dependence  of  the  external  and  internal  universe. 

Doubtless  his  early  orphanage  was  not  without  its 
effect  in  confirming  a  character  naturally  impatient  of 
control,  and  his  mind,  left  to  itself,  clothed  itself  with 
an  indigenous  growth,  which  grew  fairly  and  freely,  un 
stinted  by  the  shadow  of  exotic  plantations.  It  has 
become  a  truism,  that  remarkable  persons  have  remark 
able  mothers  ;  but  perhaps  this  is  chiefly  true  of  such  as 
have  made  themselves  distinguished  by  their  industry, 
and  by  the  assiduous  cultivation  of  faculties  in  them 
selves  of  only  an  average  quality.  It  is  rather  to  be 
noted  how  little  is  known  of  the  parentage  of  men  of 
the  first  magnitude,  how  often  they  seem  in  some  sort 
foundlings,  and  how  early  an  apparently  adverse  destiny 
begins  the  culture  of  those  who  are  to  encounter  and 
master  great  intellectual  or  spiritual  experiences. 

Of  his  disposition  as  a  child  little  is  known,  but  that 
little  is  characteristic.  He  himself  tells  us  that  he  was 
"stiff,  moody,  and  of  violent  temper."  His  mother  said 
of  him  that  he  was  the  only  one  of  her  children  about 


208  WORDSWORTH. 

whom  she  felt  any  anxiety,  —  for  she  was  sure  that  he 
would  be  remarkable  for  good  or  evil.  Once,  in  resent 
ment  at  some  fancied  injury,  he  resolved  to  kill  himself, 
but  his  heart  failed  him.  I  suspect  that  few  boys  of 
passionate  temperament  have  escaped  these  momentary 
suggestions  of  despairing  helplessness.  "  On  another 
occasion,"  he  says,  "  while  I  was  at  my  grandfather's 
house  at  Penrith,  along  with  my  eldest  brother  Richard, 
we  were  whipping  tops  together  in  the  long  drawing- 
room,  on  which  the  carpet  was  only  laid  down  on  par 
ticular  occasions.  The  walls  were  hung  round  with 
family  pictures,  and  I  said  to  my  brother,  'Dare  you 
strike  your  whip  through  that  old  lady's  petticoat  ] ' 
He  replied,  'No,  I  won't.'  'Then,'  said  I,  'here  goes,' 
and  I  struck  my  lash  through  her  hopped  petticoat,  for 
which,  no  doubt,  though  I  have  forgotten  it,  I  was  prop 
erly  punished.  But,  possibly  from  some  want  of  judg 
ment  in  punishments  inflicted,  I  had  become  perverse 
and  obstinate  in  defying  chastisement,  and  rather  proud 
of  it  than  otherwise."  This  last  anecdote  is  as  happily 
typical  as  a  bit  of  Greek  mythology  which  always  pre 
figured  the  lives  of  heroes  in  the  stories  of  their  child 
hood.  Just  so  do  we  find  him  afterward  striking  his 
defiant  lash  through  the  hooped  petticoat  of  the  artifi 
cial  style  of  poetry,  and  proudly  unsubdued  by  the  pun 
ishment  of  the  Reviewers. 

Of  his  college  life  the  chief  record  is  to  be  found  in 
"  The  Prelude."  He  did  not  distinguish  himself  as  a 
scholar,  and  if  his  life  had  any  incidents,  they  were  of 
that  interior  kind  which  rarely  appear  in  biography, 
though  they  may  be  of  controlling  influence  upon  the 
life.  He  speaks  of  reading  Chaucer,  Spenser,  and  Mil 
ton  while  at  Cambridge,*  but  no  reflection  from  them 

*  Prelude,  Book  III.  He  studied  Italian  also  at  Cambridge ;  his 
teacher,  whose  name  was  Isola,  had  formerly  taught  the  poet  Gray.  It 


WORDSWORTH.  209 

is  visible  in  his  earliest  published  poems.  The  greater 
part  of  his  vacations  was  spent  in  his  native  Lake-coun 
try,  where  his  only  sister,  Dorothy,  was  the  companion 
of  his  rambles.  She  was  a  woman  of  large  natural  en 
dowments,  chiefly  of  the  receptive  kind,  and  had  much 
to  do  with  the  formation  and  tendency  of  the  poet's 
mind.  It  was  she  who  called  forth  the  shyer  sensibili 
ties  of  his  nature,  and  taught  an  originally  harsh  and 
austere  imagination  to  surround  itself  with  fancy  and 
feeling,  as  the  rock  fringes  itself  with  a  sun-spray  of  ferns. 
She  was  his  first  public,  and  belonged  to  that  class  of 
prophetically  appreciative  temperaments  whose  apparent 
office  it  is  to  cheer  the  early  solitude  of  original  minds 
with  messages  from  the  future.  Through  the  greater 
part  of  his  life  she  continued  to  be  a  kind  of  poetical 
conscience  to  him. 

Wordsworth's  last  college  vacation  was  spent  in  a  foot 
journey  upon  the  Continent  (1790).  In  January,  1791, 
he  took  his  degree  of  B.  A.,  and  left  Cambridge.  Dur 
ing  the  summer  of  this  year  he  visited  Wales,  and,  after 
declining  to  enter  upon  holy  orders  \inder  the  plea  that 
he  was  not  of  age  for  ordination,  went  over  to  France  in 
November,  and  remained  during  the  winter  at  Orleans. 
Here  he  became  intimate  with  the  republican  General 
Beaupuis,  with  whose  hopes  and  aspirations  he  ardently 
sympathized.  In  the  spring  of  1792  he  was  at  Blois, 
and  returned  thence  to  Orleans,  which  he  finally  quitted 
in  October  for  Paris.  He  remained  here  as  long  as  he 
could  with  safety,  and  at  the  close  of  the  year  went  back 
to  England,  thus,  perhaps,  escaping  the  fate  which  soon 
after  overtook  his  friends  the  Brissotins. 

may  lie  pretty  certainly  inferred,  however,  that  his  first  systematic 
study  of  English  poetry  was  due  to  the  copy  of  Anderson's  British 
Poets,  left  with  him  by  his  sailor  brother  John  on  setting  out  for  his 
last  voyage  in  1805. 

N 


210  WORDS  WOKTH. 

As  hitherto  the  life  of  Wordsworth  may  be  called  a 
fortunate  one,  not  less  so  in  the  training  and  expansion 
of  his  faculties  was  this  period  of  his  stay  in  France. 
Born  and  reared  in  a  country  where  the  homely  and 
familiar  nestles  confidingly  amid  the  most  savage  and 
sublime  forms  of  nature,  he  had  experienced  whatever 
impulses  the  creative  faculty  can  receive  from  mountain 
and  cloud  and  the  voices  of  winds  and  waters,  but  he 
had  known  man  only  as  an  actor  in  fireside  histories  and 
tragedies,  for  which  the  hamlet  supplied  an  ample  stage. 
In  France  he  first  felt  the  authentic  beat  of  a  nation's 
heart ;  he  was  a  spectator  at  one  of  those  dramas  where 
the  terrible  footfall  of  the  Eumenides  is  heard  nearer 
and  nearer  in  the  pauses  of  the  action  ;  and  he  saw  man 
such  as  he  can  only  be  when  he  is  vibrated  by  the  or 
gasm  of  a  national  emotion.  He  sympathized  with  the 
hopes  of  France  and  of  mankind  deeply,  as  was  fitting 
in  a  young  man  and  a  poet ;  and  if  his  faith  in  the  gre 
garious  advancement  of  men  was  afterward  shaken,  he 
only  held  the  more  firmly  by  his  belief  in  the  individual, 
and  his  reverence  for  the  human  as  something  quite 
apart  from  the  popular  and  above  it.  Wordsworth  has 
been  unwisely  blamed,  as  if  he  had  been  recreant  to  the 
liberal  instincts  of  his  youth.  But  it  was  inevitable  that 
a  genius  so  regulated  and  metrical  as  his,  a  mind  which 
always  compensated  itself  for  its  artistic  radicalism  by 
an  involuntary  leaning  toward  external  respectability, 
should  recoil  from  whatever  was  convulsionary  and  de 
structive  in  politics,  and  above  all  in  religion.  He  reads 
the  poems  of  Wordsworth  without  understanding,  who 
does  not  find  in  them  the  noblest  incentives  to  faith  in 
man  and  the  grandeur  of  his  destiny,  founded  always 
upon  that  personal  dignity  and  virtue,  the  capacity  for 
whose  attainment  alone  makes  universal  liberty  possible 
and  assures  its  permanence.  He  was  to  make  men  bet- 


WOKDSWORTH.  211 

ter  by  opening  to  them  the  sources  of  an  inalterable 
well-being ;  to  make  them  free,  in  a  sense  higher  than 
political,  by  showing  them  that  these  sources  are  within 
them,  and  that  no  contrivance  of  man  can  permanently 
emancipate  narrow  natures  and  depraved  minds.  His 
politics  were  always  those  of  a  poet,  circling  in  the 
larger  orbit  of  causes  and  principles,  careless  of  the 
transitory  oscillation  of  events. 

The  change  in  his  point  of  view  (if  change  there  was) 
certainly  was  complete  soon  after  his  return  from 
France,  and  was  perhaps  due  in  part  to  the  influence  of 
Burke. 

"  While  he  [Burke]  forewarns,  denounces,  launches  forth, 
Against  all  systems  built  on  abstract  rights, 
Keen  ridicule  ;  the  majesty  proclaims 
Of  institutes  and  laws  hallowed  by  time  ; 
Declares  the  vital  power  of  social  ties 
Endeared  by  custom  ;  and  with  high  disdain, 
Exploding  upstart  theory,  insists 
Upon  the  allegiance  to  which  men  are  born. 

Could  a  youth,  and  one 

In  ancient  story  versed,  whose  breast  hath  heaved 

Under  the  weight  of  classic  eloquence, 

Sit,  see,  and  hear,  unthankful,  uninspired  ? "  * 

He  had  seen  the  French  for  a  dozen  years  eagerly 
busy  in  tearing  up  whatever  had  roots  in  the  past, 
replacing  the  venerable  trunks  of  tradition  and  orderly 
growth  with  liberty-poles,  then  striving  vainly  to  piece 
together  the  fibres  they  had  broken,  and  to  reproduce 
artificially  that  sense  of  permanence  and  continuity 
which  is  the  main  safeguard  of  vigorous  self-conscious 
ness  in  a  nation.  He  became  a  Tory  through  intellectual 
conviction,  retaining,  I  suspect,  to  the  last,  a  certain 

*  Prelude,  Book  VII.  Written  before  1805,  and  referring  to  a  still 
earlier  date.  "  Wordsworth  went  in  powder,  and  with  cocked  hat 
under  his  arm,  to  the  Marchioness  of  Stafford's  rout."  (Southey  to 
Miss  Barker,  May,  1806. ) 


212  WORDS  WOKTH. 

radicalism  of  temperament  and  instinct.  Haydon  tells 
us  that  in  1809  Sir  George  Beaumont  said  to  him  and 
Wilkie,  "  Wordsworth  may  perhaps  walk  in ;  if  he  do,  I 
caution  you  both  against  his  terrific  democratic  notions"; 
and  it  must  have  been  many  years  later  that  Words 
worth  himself  told  Ci'abb  Robinson,  "  I  have  no  respect 
whatever  for  Whigs,  but  I  have  a  great  deal  of  the 
Chartist  in  me."  In  1802,  during  his  tour  in  Scotland, 
he  travelled  on  Sundays  as  on  the  other  days  of  the 
week.*  He  afterwards  became  a  theoretical  church« 
goer.  "Wordsworth  defended  earnestly  the  Church  estab 
lishment.  He  even  said  he  would  shed  his  blood  for  it. 
Nor  was  he  disconcerted  by  a  laugh  raised  against  him 
on  account  of  his  having  confessed  that  he  knew  not 
when  he  had  been  in  a  church  in  his  own  country.  'All 
our  ministers  are  so  vile,'  said  he.  The  mischief  of  al 
lowing  the  clergy  to  depend  on  the  caprice  of  the  multi 
tude  he  thought  more  than  outweighed  all  the  evils  of 
an  establishment."  f 

In  December;  1792,  Wordsworth  had  returned  to 
England,  and  in  the  following  year  published  "  Descrip 
tive  Sketches  "  and  the  "  Evening  Walk."  He  did  this, 
as  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters,  to  show  that,  although 
he  had  gained  no  honors  at  the  University,  he  could  do 
something.  They  met  with  no  great  success,  and  he 
afterward  corrected  them  so  much  as  to  destroy  all  their 
interest  as  juvenile  productions,  without  communicating 
to  them  any  of  the  merits  of  maturity.  In  commenting, 
sixty  years  afterward,  on  a  couplet  in  one  of  these 
poems,  — 

"  And,  fronting  the  bright  west,  the  oak  entwines 
Its  darkening  boughs  and  leaves  in  stronger  lines,"  — 

*  This  was  probably  one  reason  for  the  long  suppression  of  Miss 
Wordsworth's  joiirnal,  which  she  had  evidently  prepared  for  publica 
tion  as  early  as  1805. 

t  Crabb  Robinson,  I.  250,  Am.  Ed. 


WOEDSWOKTH.  213 

he  says  :  "  This  is  feebly  and  imperfectly  expressed,  but 
I  recollect  distinctly  the  very  spot  where  this  first  struck 

me The  moment  was  important  in  my  poetical 

history ;  for  I  date  from  it  my  consciousness  of  the  infi 
nite  variety  of  natural  appearances  which  had  been  un 
noticed  by  the  poets  of  any  age  or  country,  so  far  as  I 
was  acquainted  with  them,  and  I  made  a  resolution  to 
supply  in  some  degree  the  deficiency." 

It  is  plain  that  Wordsworth's  memory  was  playing 
him  a  trick  here,  misled  by  that  instinct  (it  may  almost 
be  called)  of  consistency  which  leads  men  first  to  desire 
that  their  lives  should  have  been  without  break  or  seam, 
and  then  to  believe  that  they  have  been  such.  The 
more  distant  ranges  of  perspective  are  apt  to  run  to 
gether  in  retrospection.  How  far  could  Wordsworth  at 
fourteen  have  been  acquainted  with  the  poets  of  all  ages 
and  countries,  —  he  who  to  his  dying  day  could  not  en 
dure  to  read  Goethe  and  knew  nothing  of  Calderon  ?  It 
seems  to  me  rather  that  the  earliest  influence  traceable 
in  him  is  that  of  Goldsmith,  and  later  of  Cowper,  and  it 
is,  perhaps,  some  slight  indication  of  its  having  already 
begun  that  his  first  volume  of  "  Descriptive  Sketches  " 
(1793)  was  put  forth  by  Johnson,  who  was  Cowper's 
publisher.  By  and  by  the  powerful  impress  of  Burns  is 
seen  both  in  the  topics  of  his  verse  and  the  form  of  his 
expression.  But  whatever  their  ultimate  effect  upon 
his  style,  certain  it  is  that  his  juvenile  poems  were 
clothed  in  the  conventional  habit  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  "The  first  verses  from  which  he  remembered 
to  have  received  great  pleasure  were  Miss  Carter's 
'  Poem  on  Spring,'  a  poem  in  the  six-line  stanza  which 
he  was  particularly  fond  of  and  had  composed  much 
in,  —  for  example,  '  Ruth.'  "  This  is  noteworthv,  for 
Wordsworth's  lyric  range,  especially  so  far  as  tune  is 
concerned,  was  always  narrow.  His  sense  of  melody  was 


214  WOEDSWOETH. 

painfully  dull,  and  some  of  his  lighter  effusions,  as  he 
would  have  called  them,  are  almost  ludicrously  wanting 
in  grace  of  movement.  We  cannot  expect  in  a  modern 
poet  the  thrush-like  improvisation,  the  impulsively  be 
witching  cadences,  that  charm  us  in  our  Elizabethan 
drama  and  whose  last  warble  died  with  Herrick ;  but 
Shelley,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  have  shown  that  the 
simple  pathos  of  their  music  was  not  irrecoverable,  even 
if  the  artless  poignancy  of  their  phrase  be  gone  beyond 
recall.  We  feel  this  lack  in  Wordsworth  all  the  more 
keenly  if  we  compare  such  verses  as 

"  Like  an  army  defeated 
The  snow  hath  retreated 
And  now  doth  fare  ill 
Oil  the  top  of  the  bare  hill," 

with  Goethe's  exquisite  Ueber  alien  Gipfeln  ist  Huh, 
in  which  the  lines  (as  if  shaken  down  by  a  momentary 
breeze  of  emotion)  drop  lingeringly  one  after  another  like 
blossoms  upon  turf. 

"The  Evening  Walk"  and  "Descriptive  Sketches"  show 
plainly  the  prevailing  influence  of  Goldsmith,  both  in 
the  turn  of  thought  and  the  mechanism  of  the  verse. 
They  lack  altogether  the  temperapce  of  tone  and  judg 
ment  in  selection  which  have  made  the  "  Traveller  "  and 
the  "  Deserted  Village,"  perhaps,  the  most  truly  classical 
poems  in  the  language.  They  bear  here  and  there, 
however,  the  unmistakable  stamp  of  the  maturer  Words 
worth,  not  only  in  a  certain  blunt  realism,  but  in  the 
intensity  and  truth  of  picturesque  epithet.  Of  this  real 
ism,  from  which  Wordsworth  never  wholly  freed  him 
self,  the  following  verses  may  suffice  as  a  specimen. 
After  describing  the  fate  of  a  chamois-hunter  killed  by 
falling  from  a  crag,  his  fancy  goes  back  to  the  bereaved 
wife  and  son  :  — 

"  Haply  that  child  in  fearful  doubt  may  gaze, 
Passing  his  father's  bones  in  future  days, 


WOEDSWOKTH.  215 

Start  at  the  reliques  of  that  very  thigh 
On  which  so  oft  he  prattled  when  a  boy." 

In  these  poems  there  is  plenty  of  that  "  poetic  diction  " 
against  which  Wordsworth  was  to  lead  the  revolt  nine 
years  later. 

"  To  wet  the  peak's  impracticable  sides 
He  opens  of  his  feet  the  sanguine  tides, 
Weak  and  more  weak  the  issuing  current  eyes 
Lapped  by  the  panting  tongue  of  thirsty  skies." 

Both  of  these  passages  have  disappeared  from  the  revised 
edition,  as  well  as  some  curious  outbursts  of  that  motive 
less  despair  which  Byron  made  fashionable  not  long  after. 
Nor  are  there  wanting  touches  of  fleshliness  which  strike 
us  oddly  as  coming  from  Wordsworth.* 

"  Farewell !  those  forms  that  in  thy  noontide  shade 
Eest  near  their  little  plots  of  oaten  glade, 
Those  steadfast  eyes  that  beating  breasts  inspire 
To  throw  the  '  sultry  ray  '  of  young  Desire  ; 
Those  lips  whose  tides  of  fragrance  come  and  go 
Accordant  to  the  cheek's  unquiet  glow  ; 
Those  shadowy  breasts  in  love's  soft  light  arrayed, 
And  rising  by  the  moon  of  passion  swayed." 

The  political  tone  is  also  mildened  in  the  revision,  as 
where  he  changes  "despot  courts"  into  "tyranny."  One 
of  the  alterations  is  interesting.  In  the^  "  Evening 
Walk  "  he  had  originally  written 

"  And  bids  her  soldier  come  her  wars  to  share 
Asleep  on  Minden's  charnel  hill  afar." 

An  erratum  at  the  end  directs  us  to  correct  the  second 
verse,  thus :  — 

"Asleep  on  Bunker's  charnel  hill  afar."f 

*  Wordsworth's  purity  afterwards  grew  sensitive  almost  to  prudery. 
The  late  Mr.  Clough  told  me  that  he  heard  him  at  Dr.  Arnold's  table 
denounce  the  first  line  in  Keats's  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urn  as  indecent, 
and  Haydon  records  that  when  he  saw  the  group  of  Cupid  and  Psyche 
he  exclaimed,  "The  dev-ils!  " 

t  The  whole  passage  is  omitted  in  the  revised  edition.  The  original, 
a  quarto  pamphlet,  is  now  very  rare,  but  fortunately  Charles  Lamb's 
copy  of  it  is  now  owned  by  my  friend  Professor  C.  E.  Norton. 


216  WORDSWORTH. 

Wordsworth  somewhere  rebukes  the  poets  for  making 
the  owl  a  bodeful  bird.  He  had  himself  done  so  in  the 
"  Evening  Walk,"  and  corrects  his  epithets  to  suit  his 
later  judgment,  putting  "gladsome"  for  "boding,"  and 
replacing 

"  The  tremulous  sob  of  the  complaining  owl " 

by 

"  The  sportive  outcry  of  the  mocking  owl." 

Indeed,  the  character  of  the  two  poems  is  so  much 
changed  in  the  revision  as  to  make  the  dates  appended 
to  them  a  misleading  anachronism.  But  there  is  one 
truly  Wordsworthian  passage  which  already  gives  us  a 
glimpse  of  that  passion  with  which  he  was  the  first  to 
irradiate  descriptive  poetry  and  which  sets  him  on  a 
level  with  Turner. 

"  'T  is  storm  ;  and  hid  in  mist  from  hour  to  hour 
All  day  the  floods  a  deepening  murmur  pour : 
The  sky  is  veiled  and  every  cheerful  sight ;         • 
Dark  is  the  region  as  with  coming  night ; 
But  what  a  sudden  burst  of  overpowering  light ! 
Triumphant  on  the  bosom  of  the  storm, 
Glances  the  fire-clad  eagle's  wheeling  form  ; 
Eastward,  in  long  prospective  glittering  shine 
The  wood-crowned  cliffs  that  o'er  the  lake  recline ; 
Those  eastern  cliffs  a  hundred  streams  iinfold, 
At  once  to  pillars  turned  that  flame  with  gold ; 
Behind  his  sail  the  peasant  tries  to  shun 
The  West  that  burns  like  one  dilated  sun, 
Where  iu  a  mighty  crucible  expire 
The  mountains,  glowing  hot  like  coals  of  fire." 

Wordsworth  has  made  only  one  change  in  these  verses, 
and  that  for  the  worse,  by  substituting  "  glorioxis " 
(which  was  already  implied  in  "glances"  and  "fire- 
clad  ")  for  "  wheeling."  In  later  life  he  would  have 
found  it  hard  to  forgive  the  man  who  should  have  made 
cliffs  recline  over  a  lake.  On  the  whole,  what  strikes  us 
as  most  prophetic  in  these  poems  is  their  want  of  conti 
nuity,  and  the  purple  patches  of  true  poetry  on  a  texture 


WORDSWORTH.  217 

of  unmistakable  prose ;  perhaps  we  might  add  the  in 
congruous  clothing  of  prose  thoughts  in  the  ceremonial 
robes  of  poesy. 

During  the  same  year  (1793)  he  wrote,  but  did  not 
publish,  a  political  tract,  in  which  he  avowed  himself 
opposed  to  monarchy  and  to  the  hereditary  principle, 
and  desirous  of  a  republic,  if  it  could  be  had  without 
a  revolution.  He  probably  continued  to  be  all  his  life 
in  favor  of  that  ideal  republic  "  which  never  was  on 
land  or  sea,"  but  fortunately  he  gave  up  politics  that 
he  might  devote  himself  to  his  own  nobler  calling,  to 
which  politics  are  subordinate,  and  for  which  he  found 
freedom  enough  in -England  as  it  was.*  Dr.  Wordsworth 
admits  that  his  uncle's  opinions  were  democratical  so 
late  as  1802.  I  suspect  that  they  remained  so  in  an  eso 
teric  way  to  the  end  of  his  days.  He  had  himself  suf 
fered  by  the  arbitrary  selfishness  of  a  great  landholder, 
and  he  was  born  and  bred  in  a  part  of  England  where 
there  is  a  greater  social  equality  than  elsewhere.  The 
look  and  manner  of  the  Cumberland  people  especially 


*  Wordsworth  showed  his  habitual  good  sense  in  never  sharing,  so 
far  as  is  known,  the  communistic  dreams  of  his  friends  Coleridge  and 
Southey.  The  latter  of  the  two  had,  to  be  sure,  renounced  them  shortly 
after  his  marriage,  and  before  his  acquaintance  with  Wordsworth  began. 
But  Coleridge  seems  to  have  clung  to  them  longer.  There  is  a  passage 
in  one  of  his  letters  to  Cottle  (without  date,  but  apparently  written  in 
the  spring  of  1798)  which  would  imply  that  Wordsworth  had  been  ac 
cused  of  some  kind  of  social  heresy.  "  Wordsworth  has  been  caballed 
against  so  long  and  so  loudly  that  he  has  found  it  impossible  to  pre 
vail  on  the  tenant  of  the  Allfoxden  estate  to  let  him  the  house  after 
their  first  agreement  is  expired."  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  Words 
worth's  insulation  of  character  and  habitual  want  of  sympathy  with 
anything  but  the  moods  of  his  own  mind  that  rendered  him  incapable 
of  this  copartnery  of  enthusiasm.  He  appears  to  have  regarded  even 
his  sister  Dora  (whom  he  certainly  loved  as  much  as  it  was  possible  for 
him  to  love  anything  but  his  own  poems)  as  a  kind  of  tributary  de 
pendency  of  his  genius,  much  as  a  mountain  might  look  down  on  ope 
of  its  ancillary  spurs. 

10 


218  WORDSWORTH. 

are  such  as  recall  very  vividly  to  a  New-Englander  the 
associations  of  fifty  years  ago,  ere  the  change  from  New 
England  to  New  Ireland  had  begun.  But  meanwhile, 
Want,  which  makes  no  distinctions  of  Monarchist  or 
Republican,  was  pressing  upon  him.  The  debt  due  to 
his  father's  estate  had  not  been  paid,  and  Wordsworth 
was  one  of  those  rare  idealists  who  esteem  it  the  first 
duty  of  a  friend  of  humanity  to  live  for,  and  not  on,  his 
neighbor.  He  at  first  proposed  establishing  a  periodical 
journal  to  be  called  "  The  Philanthropist,"  but  luckily 
went  no  further  with  it,  for  the  receipts  from  an  organ 
of  opinion  which  professed  republicanism,  and  at  the 
same  time  discountenanced  the  plans  of  all  existing  or 
defunct  republicans,  would  have  been  necessarily  scanty. 
There  being  no  appearance  of  any  demand,  present  or 
prospective,  for  philanthropists,  he  tried  to  get  employ 
ment  as  correspondent  of  a  newspaper.  Here  also  it 
was  impossible  that  he  should  succeed ;  he  was  too 
great  to  be  merged  in  the  editorial  We,  and  had  too 
well  defined  a  private  opinion  on  all  subjects  to  be  able 
to  express  that  average  of  public  opinion  which  consti 
tutes  able  editorials.  But  so  it  is  that  to  the  prophet 
in  the  wilderness  the  birds  of  ill  omen  are  already  on 
the  wing  with  food  from  heaven  ;  and  •  while  Words 
worth's  relatives  were  getting  impatient  at  what  they 
considered  his  waste  of  time,  while  one  thought  he  had 
gifts  enough  to  make  a  good  parson,  and  another  la 
mented  the  rare  attorney  that  was  lost  in  him,*  the 

*  Speaking  to  one  of  his  neighbors  in  1845  he  said,  "that,  after  he 
had  finished  his  college  course,  he  was  in  great  doubt  as  to  what  his 
future  employment  should  be.  He  did  not  feel  himself  good  enough 
for  the  Church  ;  he  felt  that  his  mind  was  not  properly  disciplined  for 
that  holy  office,  and  that  the  struggle  between  his  conscience  and  his 
impulses  would  have  made  life  a  torture.  He  also  shrank  from  the 
Law,  althoiigh  Southey  often  told  him  that  he  was  well  fitted  for  the 
higher  parts  of  the  profession.  He  had  studied  military  history  with 


WORDSWOKTH.  219 

prescient  muse  guided  the  hand  of  Raisley  Calvert 
while  he  wrote  the  poet's  name  in  his  will  for  a  legacy 
of  £  900.  By  the  death  of  Calvert,  in  1795,  this  timely 
help  came  to  Wordsworth  at  the  turning-point  of  his 
life,  and  made  it  honest  for  him  to  write  poems  that  will 
never  die,  instead  of  theatrical  critiques  as  ephemeral  as 
play-bills,  or  leaders  that  led  only  to  oblivion. 

In  the  autumn  of  1795  Wordsworth  and  his  sister 
took  up  their  abode  at  Racedown  Lodge,  near  Crew- 
kerne,  in  Dorsetshire.  Here  nearly  two  years  were 
passed,  chiefly  in  the  study  of  poetry,  and  Wordsworth 
to  some  extent  recovered  from  the  fierce  disappointment 
of  his  political  dreams,  and  regained  that  equable  tenor 
of  mind  which  alone  is  consistent  with  a  healthy  pro 
ductiveness.  Here  Coleridge,  who  had  contrived  to  see 
something  more  in  the  "  Descriptive  Sketches  "  than  the 
public  had  discovered  there,  first  made  his  acquaintance. 
The  sympathy  and  appreciation  of  an  intellect  like  Cole 
ridge's  supplied  him  with  that  external  motive  to  activ 
ity  which  is  the  chief  use  of  popularity,  and  justified  to 
him  his  opinion  of  his  own  powers.  It  was  now  that  the 
tragedy  of  "  The  Borderers  "  was  for  the  most  part  writ 
ten,  and  that  plan  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads "  suggested 
which  gave  Wordsworth  a  clew  to  lead  him  out  of  the 

great  interest,  and  the  strategy  of  war ;  and  he  always  fancied  that  he* 
had  talents  for  command  ;  and  he  at  one  time  thought  of  a  military 
life,  but  then  he  was  without  connections,  and  he  felt,  if  he  were  or 
dered  to  the  West  Indies,  his  talents  would  not  save  him  from  the 
yellow-fever,  and  he  gave  that  up."  (Memoirs,  II.  466.)  It  is  curious 
to  fancy  Wordsworth  a  soldier.  Certain  points  of  likeness  between 
him  and  Wellington  have  often  struck  me.  They  resemble  each  other 
in  practical  good  sense,  fidelity  to  duty,  courage,  and  also  in  a  kind  of 
precise  uprightness  which  made  their  personal  character  somewhat 
•uninteresting.  But  what  was  decorum  in  Wellington  was  piety  in 
Wordsworth,  and  the  entire  absence  of  imagination  (the  great  point 
of  dissimilarity)  perhaps  helped  as  much  as  anything  to  make  Wel 
lington  a  great  commander. 


220  WOKDSWOKTH. 

metaphysical  labyrinth  in  which  he  was  entangled.  It 
was  agreed  between  the  two  young  friends,  that  Words 
worth  was  to  be  a  philosophic  poet,  and,  by  a  good  for 
tune  uncommon  to  such  conspiracies,  Nature  had  already 
consented  to  the  arrangement.  In  July,  1797,  the  two 
Wordsworths  removed  to  Allfoxden  in  Somersetshire,  that 
they  might  be  near  Coleridge,  who  in  the  mean  while  had 
married  and  settled  himself  at  Nether-Stowey.  In  No 
vember  "  The  Borderers  "  was  finished,  and  Wordsworth 
went  up  to  London  with  his  sister  to  offer  it  for  the 
stage.  The  good  Genius  of  the  poet  again  interposing, 
the  play  was  decisively  rejected,  and  Wordsworth  went 
back  to  Allfoxden,  himself  the  hero  of  that  first  tragi 
comedy  so  common  to  young  authors. 

The  play  has  fine  passages,  but  is  as  unreal  as  Jane 
Eyre.  It  shares  with  many  of  Wordsworth's  narrative 
poems  the  defect  of  being  written  to  illustrate  an  ab 
stract  moral  theory,  so  that  the  overbearing  thesis  is 
continually  thrusting  the  poetry  to  the  wall.  Applied 
to  the  drama,  such  predestination  makes  all  the  person 
ages  puppets  and  disenables  them  for  being  characters. 
Wordsworth  seems  to  have  felt  this  when  he  published 
"The  Borderers"  in  1842,  and  says  in  a  note  that  it  was 
"  at  first  written  ....  without  any  view  to  its  exhibition 
upon  the  stage."  But  he  was  mistaken.  The  contempo 
raneous  letters  of  Coleridge  to  Cottle  show  that  he  was 
long  in  giving  up  the  hope  of  getting  it  accepted  by 
some  theatrical  manager. 

He  now  applied  himself  to  the  preparation  of  the  first 
volume  of  the  "Lyrical  Ballads"  for  the  press,  and  it 
was  published  toward  the  close  of  1798.  The  book, 
which  contained  also  "  The  Ancient  Mariner "  of  Cole 
ridge,  attracted  little  notice,  and  that  in  great  part  con 
temptuous.  When  Mr.  Cottle,  the  publisher,  shortly 
after  sold  his  copyrights  to  Mr.  Longman,  that  of  the 


WORDSWORTH.  221 

"  Lyrical  Ballads  "  was  reckoned  at  zero,  and  it  was  at  last 
given  Tip  to  the  authors.  A  few  persons  were  not  want 
ing,  however,  who  discovered  the  dawn-streaks  of  a  new 
day  in  that  light  which  the  critical  fire-brigade  thought 
to  extinguish  with  a  few  contemptuous  spurts  of  cold 
water.* 

Lord  Byron  describes  himself  as  waking  one  morning 
and  finding  himself  famous,  and  it  is  quite  an  ordinary 
fact,  that  a  blaze  may  be  made  with  a  little  saltpetre 
that  will  be  stared  at  by  thousands  who  would  have 
thought  the  sunrise  tedious.  If  we  may  believe  his 
biographer,  Wordsworth  might  have  said  that  he  awoke 
and  found  himself  in-famous,  for  the  publication  of  the 
"Lyrical  Ballads"  undoubtedly  raised  him  to  the  distinc 
tion  of  being  the  least  popular  poet  in  England.  Par- 
nassiis  has  two  peaks ;  the  one  where  improvising  poets 
cluster ;  the  other  where  the  singer  of  deep  secrets  sits 
alone,  —  a  peak  veiled  sometimes  from  the  whole  morn 
ing  of  a  generation  by  earth-born  mists  and  smoke  of 
kitchen  fires,  only  to  glow  the  more  consciously  at  sun 
set,  and  after  nightfall  to  crown  itself  with  imperishable 
stars.  Wordsworth  had  that  self-trust  which  in 'the  man 
of  genius  is  sublime,  'and  in  the  man  of  talent  insuffera 
ble.  It  mattered  not  to  him  though  all  the  reviewers 
had  been  in  a  chorus  of  laughter  or  conspiracy  of  silence 

*  Cottle  says,  "  The  sale  was  so  slow  and  the  severity  of  most  of  the 
reviews  so  great  that  its  progress  to  oblivion  seemed  to  be  certain." 
But  the  notices  in  the  Monthly  and  Critical  Reviews  (then  the  most 
influential)  were  fair,  and  indeed  favorable,  especially  to  Wordsworth's 
share  in  the  volume.  The  Monthly  says,  "  So  much  genius  and  origi 
nality  are  discovered  in  this  publication  that  we  wish  to  see  another 
from  the  same  hand."  The  Critical,  after  saying  that  "in  the  whole 
range  of  English  poetry  we  scarcely  recollect  anything  superior  to  a 
passage  in  Lines  written  near  Tintern  Abbey,"  sums  up  thus  :  "  Yet 
every  piece  discovers  genius  ;  and  ill  as  the  author  has  frequently 
employed  his  talents,  they  certainly  rank  him  with  the  best  of  living 
poets."  Such  treatment  cannot  surely  be  called  discouraging. 


222  WORDSWORTH. 

behind  him.  He  went  quietly  over  to  Germany  to  write 
more  Lyrical  Ballads,  and  to  begin  a  poem  on  the  growth 
of  his  own  mind,  at  a  time  when  there  were  only  two 
men  in  the  world  (himself  and  Coleridge)  who  were  aware 
that  he  had  one,  or  at  least  one  anywise  differing  from 
those  mechanically  uniform  ones  which  are  stuck  drearily, 
side  by  side,  in  the  great  pin-paper  of  society. 

In  Germany  Wordsworth  dined  in  company  with 
Klopstock,  and  after  dinner  they  had  a  conversation, 
of  which  Wordsworth  took  notes.  The  respectable  old 
poet,  who  was  passing  the  evening  of  his  days  by  the 
chimney-corner,  Darby  and  Joan  like,  with  his  respecta 
ble  Muse,  seems  to  have  been  rather  bewildered  by  the 
apparition  of  a  living  genius.  The  record  is  of  value 
now  chiefly  for  the  insight  it  gives  us  into  Wordsworth's 
mind.  Among  other  things  he  said,  "  that  it  was  the 
province  of  a  great  poet  to  raise  people  up  to  his  own 
level,  not  to  descend  to  theirs,"' — memorable  words,  the 
more  memorable  that  a  literary  life  of  sixty  years  was  in 
keeping  with  them. 

It  would  be  instructive  to  know  what  were  Words- 
worth's  studies  during  his  winter  in  Goslar.  De  Quin- 
cey's  statement  is  mere  conjecture.  It  may  be  guessed 
fairly  enough  that  he  would  seek  an  entrance  to  the 
German  language  by  the  easy  path  of  the  ballad,  a 
course  likely  to  confirm  him  in  his  theories  as  to  the 
language  of  poetry.  The  Spinosism  with  which  he  has 
been  not  unjustly  charged  was  certainly  not  due  to  any 
German  influence,  for  it  appears  unmistakably  in  the 
"Lines  composed  at  Tiutern  Abbey"  in  July,  1798.  It 
is  more  likely  to  have  been  derived  from  his  talks  with 
Coleridge  in  1797.*  When  Emerson  visited  him  in  1833, 

*  A  very  improbable  story  of  Coleridge's  in  the  Biographia  Litera- 
ria  represents  the  two  friends  as  having  incurred  a  suspicion  of  trea 
sonable  dealings  with  the  French  enemy  by  their  constant  references 


WOHDSWORTH.  223 

he  spoke  with  loathing  of  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  a  part  of 
which  he  had  read  in  Carlyle's  translation  apparently. 
There  was  some  affectation  in  this,  it  should  seem,  for 
he  had  read  Smollett.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be  fairly 
concluded  that  the  help  of  Germany  in  the  development 
of  his  genius  may  be  reckoned  as  very  small,  though 
there  is  certainly  a  marked  resemblance  both  in  form 
and  sentiment  between  some  of  his  earlier  lyrics  and 
those  of  Goethe.  His  poem  of  the  "Thorn,"  though 
vastly  more  imaginative,  may  have  been  suggested  by 
Biirger's  Pfarrer's  Tochter  von  Taubenhain.  The  little 
grave  drei  Spannen  lang,  in  its  conscientious  measure 
ment,  certainly  recalls  a  famous  couplet  in  the  English 
poem. 

After  spending  the  winter  at  Goslar,  Wordsworth  and 
his  sister  returned  to  England  in  the  spring  of  1 799,  and 
settled  at  Grasmere  in  Westmoreland.  In  1800,  the  first 
edition  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  being  exhausted,  it  was 
republished  with  the  addition  of  another  volume,  Mr. 
Longman  paying  £  100  for  the  copyright  of  two  edi 
tions.  The  book  passed  to  a  second  edition  in  1802, 
and  to  a  third  in  1805.*  Wordsworth  sent  a  copy  of  it, 
with  a  manly  letter,  to  Mr.  Fox,  particularly  recommend 
ing  to  his  attention  the  poems  "  Michael "  and  "  The 
Brothers,"  as  displaying  the  strength  and  permanence 
among  a  simple  and  rural  population  of  those  domestic 
affections  which  were  certain  to  decay  gradually  under 

to  a  certain  "Spy  Nosey."  The  story  at  least  seerns  to  show  how 
they  pronounced  the  name,  which  was  exactly  in  accordance  with  the 
usage  of  the  last  generation  in  New  England. 

*  Wordsworth  found  (as  other  original  minds  have  since  done)  a 
hearing  in  America  sooner  than  in  England.  James  Humphreys, 
a  Philadelphia  bookseller,  was  encouraged  by  a  sufficient  list  of  sub 
scribers  to  reprint  the  first  edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads.  The  second 
English  edition,  however,  having  been  published  before  he  had  wholly 
completed  his  reprinting,  was  substantially  followed  in  the  first  Amer 
ican,  which  was  published  in  1302. 


224  WOBDSWORTH. 

the  influence  of  manufactories  and  poor-houses.  Mr. 
Fox  wrote  a  civil  acknowledgment,  saying  that  his  favor 
ites  among  the  poems  were  "  Harry  Gill,"  "  We  are  Sev 
en,"  "  The  Mad  Mother,"  and  "  The  Idiot,"  but  that  he 
was  prepossessed  against  the  use  of  blank-verse  for  sim 
ple  subjects.  Any  political  significance  in  the  poems  he 
was  apparently  unable  to  see.  To  this  second  edition 
Wordsworth  prefixed  an  argumentative  Preface,  in  which 
he  nailed  to  the  door  of  the  cathedral  of  English  song 
the  critical  theses  which  he  was  to  maintain  against  all 
comers  in  his  poetry  and  his  life.  It  was  a  new  thing 
for  an  author  to  undertake  to  show  the  goodness  of 
his  verses  by  the  logic  and  learning  of  his  prose;  but 
Wordsworth  carried  to  the  reform  of  poetry  all  that 
fervor  and  faith  which  had  lost  their  political  object,  and 
it  is  another  proof  of  the  sincerity  and  greatness  of  his 
mind,  and  of  that  heroic  simplicity  which  is  their  con 
comitant,  that  he  could  do  so  calmly  what  was  sure  to 
seem  ludicrous  to  the  greater  number  of  his  readers. 
Fifty  years  have  since  demonstrated  that  the  true  judg 
ment  of  oue  man  outweighs  any  counterpoise  of  false 
judgment,  and  that  the  faith  of  mankind  is  guided  to  a 
man  only  by  a  well-founded  faith  in  himself.  To  this 
Defensio  Wordsworth  afterward  added  a  supplement, 
and  the  two  form  a  treatise  of  permanent  value  for  phil 
osophic  statement  and  decorous  English.  Their  only  ill 
eifect  has  been,  that  they  have  encouraged  many  other 
wise  deserving  young  men  to  set  a  Sibylline  value  on 
their  verses  in  proportion  as  they  were  unsalable.  The 
strength  of  an  argument  for  self-reliance  drawn  from  the 
example  of  a  great  man  depends  wholly  on  the  great 
ness  of  him  who  uses  it ;  such  arguments  being  like 
coats  of  mail,  which,  though  they  serve  the  strong 
against  arrow-flights  and  lance-thrusts,  may  only  suffo 
cate  the  weak  or  sink  him  the  sooner  in  the  waters  of 
oblivion. 


WOKDSWOKTH.  225 

An  advertisement  prefixed  to  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads," 
as  originally  published  in  one  volume,  warned  the 
reader  that  "  they  were  written  chiefly  with  a  view  to 
ascertain  how  far  the  language  of  conversation  in  the 
middle  and  loiver  classes  of  society  is  adapted  to  the 
purposes  of  poetic  pleasure."  In  his  preface  to  the 
second  edition,  in  two  volumes,  Wordsworth  already 
found  himself  forced  to  shift  his  ground  a  little  (per 
haps  in  .deference  to  the  wider  view  and  finer  sense  of 
Coleridge),  and  now  says  of  the  former  volume  that 
"  it  was  published  as  an  experiment  which,  I  hoped, 
might  be  of  some  use  to  ascertain  how  far,  by  fitting 
to  metrical  arrangement,  a  selection  of  the  real  language 
of  men  in  a  state  of  vivid  sensation,  that  sort  of  pleas 
ure  and  that  quantity  of  pleasure  may  be  imparted 
which  a  poet  may  rationally  endeavor  to  impart."* 
Here  is  evidence  of  a  retreat  towards  a  safer  position, 
though  Wordsworth  seems  to  have  remained  uncon 
vinced  at  heart,  and  for  many  years  longer  clung  obsti 
nately  to  the  passages  of  bald  prose  into  which  his  origi 
nal  theory  had  betrayed  him.  In  1815  his  opinions 
had  undergone  a  still  further  change,  and  an  assiduous 
study  of  the  qualities  of  his  own  mind  and  of  his  own 
poetic  method  (the  two  subjects  in  which  alone  he  was 
ever  a  thorough  scholar)  had  convinced  hirn  that  poetry 
was  in  no  sense  that  appeal  to  the  understanding  which 
is  implied  by  the  words  "  rationally  endeavor  to  im 
part."  In  the  preface  of  that  year  he  says,  "  The 
observations  prefixed  to  that  portion  of  these  volumes 
which  was  published  many  years  ago  under  the  title  of 
'  Lyrical  Ballads  '  have  so  little  of  special  application  to 
the  greater  part  of  the  present  enlarged  and  diversified 
collection,  that  they  could  not  with  propriety  stand  as 

*  Some  of  the  weightiest  passages   in   this  Preface,  as  it  is  now 
printed,  were  inserted  without  notice  of  date  in   he  edition  of  1815. 

10*  o 


226  WORDSWORTH. 

an  introduction  to  it."  It  is  a  pity  that  he  could  not 
have  become  an  earlier  convert  to  Coleridge's  pithy 
definition,  that  "  prose  was  words  in  their  best  order, 
and  poetry  the  best  words  in  the  best  order."  But  ideal 
ization  was  something  that  Wordsworth  was  obliged  to 
learn  painfully.  It  did  not  come  to  him  naturally  as 
to  Spenser  and  Shelley  and  to  Coleridge  in  his  higher 
moods.  Moreover,  it  was  in  the  too  frequent  choice  of 
subjects  incapable, of  being  idealized  without  a  manifest 
jar  between  theme  and  treatment  that  Wordsworth's 
great  mistake  lay.  For  example,  in  "  The  Blind  High 
land  Boy  "  he  had  originally  the  following  stanzas  :  — 

"  Strong  is  the  current,  but  be  mild, 
Ye  waves,  and  spare  the  helpless  child  ! 
If  ye  in  anger  fret  or  chafe, 
A  bee-hive  would  be  ship  as  safe 
As  that  in  which  he  sails. 

"  But  say,  what  was  it  ?    Thought  of  fear  ! 
Well  may  ye  tremble  when  ye  hear  ! 
—  A  household  tub  like  one  of  those 
Which  women  use  to  wash  their  clothes, 
This  carried  the  blind  boy." 

In  endeavoring  to  get  rid  of  the  downright  vulgarity 
of  phrase  in  the  last  stanza,  Wordsworth  invents  an 
impossible  tortoise-shell,  and  thus  robs  his  story  of  the 
reality  which  alone  gave  it  a  living  interest.  Any  ex 
temporized  raft  would  have  floated  the  boy  down  to 
immortality.  But  Wordsworth  never  quite  learned  the 
distinction  between  Fact,  which  suffocates  the  Muse,  and 
Truth,  which  is  the  very  breath  of  her  nostrils.  Study 
and  self-culture  did  much  for  him,  but  they  never  quite 
satisfied  him  that  he  was  capable  of  making  a  mistake. 
He  yielded  silently  to  friendly  remonstrance  on  certain 
points,  and  gave  up,  for  example,  the  ludicrous  exact 
ness  of 

"  I  Ve  measured  it  from  side  to  side, 
'T  is  three  feet  long  and  two  feet  wide." 


WOKDSWORTH.  227 

But  I  doubt  if  he  was  ever  really  convinced,  and  to  his 
dying  day  he  could  never  quite  shake  off  that  habit  of 
over-minute  detail  which  renders  the  narratives  of  un 
cultivated  people  so  tedious,  and  sometimes  so  distaste 
ful.*  "  Simon  Lee,"  after  his  latest  revision,  still  contains 
verses  like  these  :  — 

"  And  he  is  lean  and  he  is  sick ; 
His  body,  dwindled  and  awry, 
Rests  upon  ankles  swollen  and  thick  ; 
His  legs  are  thin  and  dry  ; 

Few  months  of  life  he  has  in  store, 
As  he  to  you  will  tell, 
For  still,  the  more  he  works,  the  more 
Do  his  weak  ankles  swell,"  — 

which  are  not  only  prose,  but  bad  prose,  and  more 
over  guilty  of  the  same  fault  for  which  Wordsworth 
condemned  Dr.  Johnson's  famous  parody  on  the  bal 
lad-style, —  that  their  "matter  is  contemptible."  The 
sonorousness  of  conviction  with  which  Wordsworth  some 
times  gives  utterance  to  commonplaces  of  thought  and 
trivialities  of  sentiment  has  a  ludicrous  effect  on  the 
profane  and  even  on  the  faithful  in  unguarded  moments. 
We  are  reminded  of  a  passage  in  the  "  Excursion  "  :  — 

"  List !  I  heard 

From  yon  huge  breast  of  rock  a  solemn  bleat, 
Sent  forth  as  if  it  were  the  mountain's  voice," 

In  1800  the  friendship  of  Wordsworth  with  Lamb 
began,  and  was  thenceforward  never  interrupted.     He 

*  "  On  my  alluding  to  the  line, 

'  Three  feet  long  and  two  feet  wide,' 

and  confessing  that  I  dared  not  read  them  aloud  in  company,  he  said, 
'They  ought  to  be  liked.'  "  (Crabb  Robinson,  9th  May,  1815.)  His 
ordinary  answer  to  criticisms  was  that  he  considered  the  power  to  ap 
preciate  the  passage  criticised  as  a  test  of  the  critic's  capacity  to  judge 
of  poetry  at  all. 


228  WORDSWORTH. 

continued  to  live  at  Grasmere,  conscientiously  diligent 
in  the  composition  of  poems,  secure  of  finding  the  ma 
terials  of  glory  within  and  around  him ;  for  his  genius 
taught  him  that  inspiration  is  no  product  of  a  foreign 
shore,  and  that  no  adventurer  ever  found  it,  though  ho 
wandered  as  long  as  Ulysses.  Meanwhile  the  appre 
ciation  of  the  best  minds  and  the  gratitude  of  the  purest 
hearts  gradually  centred  more  and  more  towards  him. 
In  1802  he  made  a  short  visit  to  France,  in  company 
with  Miss  Wordsworth,  and  soon  after  his  return  to 
England  was  married  to  Mary  Hutchinson,  on  the  4th 
of  October  of  the  same  year.  Of  the  good  fortune  of 
this  marriage  no  other  proof  is  needed  than  the  purity 
and  serenity  of  his  poems,  and  its  record  is  to  be  sought 
nowhere  else. 

On  the  18th  of  June,  1803,  his  first  child,  John,  was 
born,  and  on  the  14th  of  August  of  the  same  year  he  set 
out  with  his  sister  on  a  foot  journey  into  Scotland.  Cole 
ridge  was  their  companion  during  a  part  of  this  excur 
sion,  of  which  Miss  Wordsworth  kept  a  full  diary.  In 
Scotland  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Scott,  who  recited 
to  him  a  part  of  the  "  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  then 
in  manuscript.  The  travellers  returned  to  Grasmere  on 
the  25th  of  September.  It  was  during  this  year  that 
Wordsworth's  intimacy  with  the  excellent  Sir  George 
Beaumont  began.  Sir  George  was  an  amateur  painter 
of  considerable  merit,  and  his  friendship  was  undoubt 
edly  of  service  to  Wordsworth  in  making  him  familiar 
with  the  laws  of  a  sister  art  and  thus  contributing  to 
enlarge  the  sympathies  of  his  criticism,  the  tendency  of 
which  was  toward  too  great  exclusiveness.  Sir  George 
Beaumont,  dying  in  1827,  did  not  forego  his  regard  for 
the  poet,  but  contrived  to  hold  his  affection  in  mortmain 
by  the  legacy  of  an  annuity  of  £  100,  to  defray  the 
charges  of  a  yearly  journey. 


WORDSWORTH.  229 

In  March,  1805,  the  poet's  brother,  John,  lost  his  life 
by  the  shipwreck  of  the  Abergavenny  East-Indiaman,  of 
which  he  was  captain.  He  was  a  man  of  great  purity 
and  integrity,  and  sacrificed  himself  to  his  sense  of  duty 
by  refusing  to  leave  the  ship  till  it  was  impossible  to 
save  him.  Wordsworth  was  deeply  attached  to  him,  and 
felt  such  grief  at  his  death  as  only  solitary  natures  like 
his  are  capable  of,  though  mitigated  by  a  sense  of  the 
heroism  which  was  the  cause  of  it.  The  need  of  mental 
activity  as  affording  an  outlet  to  intense  emotion  may 
account  for  the  great  productiveness  of  this  and  the  fol 
lowing  year.  He  now  completed  "  The  Prelude,"  wrote 
"  The  Wagoner,"  and  increased  the  number  of  his  smaller 
poems  enough  to  fill  two  volumes,  which  were  published 
in  1807. 

This  collection,  which  contained  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  his  shorter  pieces,  and  among  others  the  in 
comparable  Odes  to  Duty  and  on  Immortality,  did  not 
reach  a  second  edition  till  1815.  The  reviewers  had  an 
other  laugh,  and  rival  poets  pillaged  while  they  scoffed, 
particularly  Byron,  among  whose  verses  a  bit  of  Words 
worth  showed  as  incongruously  as  a  sacred  vestment  on 
the  back  of  some  buccaneering  plunderer  of  an  abbey.* 
There  was  a  general  combination  to  put  him  down,  but 
on  the  other  hand  there  was  a  powerful  party  in  his 
favor,  consisting  of  William  Wordsworth.  He  not  only 
continued  in  good  heart  himself,  but,  reversing  the  or 
der  usual  on  such  occasions,  kept  up  the  spirits  of  his 
friends,  t 

*  Byron,  then  in  his  twentieth  year,  wrote  a  review  of  these  volumes 
not,  on  the  whole,  unfair.  Crabb  Robinson  is  reported  as  saying  that 
Wordsworth  was  indignant  at  the  Edinburgh  Review's  attack  on 
Hours  of  Idleness.  "The  young  man  will  do  something  if  he  goes 
on,"  he  said. 

t  The  Rev.  Dr.  Wordsworth  has  encumbered  the  memory  of  his 
uncle  with  two  volumes  of  Memoirs,  which  for  confused  dreariness 


230  WOEDSWOETH. 

Wordsworth  passed  the  winter  of  1806-7  in  a  house 
of  Sir  George  Beaumont's,  at  Coleorton  in  Leicestershire, 
the  cottage  at  Grasmere  having  become  too  small  for  his 
increased  family.  On  his  return  to  the  Vale  of  Gras 
mere  he  rented  the  house  at  Allan  Bank,  where  he  lived 
three  years.  During  this  period  he  appears  to  have 
written  very  little  poetry,  for  which  his  biographer  as 
signs  as  a  primary  reason  the  smokiness  of  the  Allan 
Bank  chimneys.  This  will  hardly  account  for  the  fail 
ure  of  the  summer  crop,  especially  as  Wordsworth  com 
posed  chiefly  in  the  open  air.  It  did  not  prevent  him 
from  writing  a  pamphlet  upon  the  Convention  of  Cintra, 
which  was  published  too  late  to  attract  much  attention, 
though  Lamb  says  that  its  effect  upon  him  was  like  that 
which  one  of  Milton's  tracts  might  have  had  upon  a  con- 
are  only  matched  by  the  Rev.  Mark  Noble's  "  History  of  the  Protec 
torate  House  of  Cromwell."  It  is  a  misfortune  that  his  materials  were 
not  put  into  the  hands  of  Professor  Reed,  whose  notes  to  the  American 
edition  are  among  the  most  valuable  parts  of  it,  as  they  certainly  are 
the  clearest.  The  book  contains,  however,  some  valuable  letters  of 
Wordsworth  ;  and  those  relating'to  this  part  of  his  life  should  be  read 
by  every  student  of  his  works,  for  the  light  they  throw  upon  the  prin 
ciples  which  governed  him  in  the  composition  of  his  poems.  In  a  let 
ter  to  Lady  Beaumont  (May  21,  1807)  he  says,  "  Trouble  not  yourself 
upon  their  present  reception  ;  of  what  moment  is  that  compared  with 
what  I  trust  is  their  destiny  !  —  to  console  the  afflicted,  to  add  sun 
shine  to  daylight  by  making  the  happy  happier ;  to  teach  the  young 
and  the  gracious  of  every  age,  to  see,  to  think  and  feel,  and  therefore 
to  become  more  actively  and  securely  virtuous ;  this  is  their  office, 
which  I  trust  they  will  faithfully  perform  long  after  we  (that  is,  all 

that  is  mortal  of  us)  are  mouldered  incur  graves To  conclude, 

my  ears  are  stone-dead  to  this  idle  buzz  [of  hostile  criticism],  and  my 
flesh  as  insensible  as  iron  to  these  petty  stings  ;  and,  after  what  I  have 
said,  I  am  sure  yours  will  be  the  same.  I  doubt  not  that  you  will 
share  with  me  an  invincible  confidence  that  my  writings  (and  among 
them  these  little  poems)  will  co-operate  with  the  benign  tendencies  in 
human  nature  and  society  wherever  found  ;  and  that  they  will  in  their 
degree  be  efficacious  in  making  men  wiser,  better,  and  happier."  Here 
is  an  odd  reversal  of  the  ordinary  relation  between  an  unpopular  poet 
and  his  little  public  of  admirers  ;  it  is  he  who  keeps  up  their  spirits, 
and  supplies  them  with  faith  from  his  own  inexhaustible  cistern. 


WORDSWORTH.  231 

temporary.*  It  was  at  Allan  Bank  that  Coleridge  dic 
tated  "  The  Friend,"  and  Wordsworth  contributed  to  it 
two  essays,  one  in  answer  to  a  letter  of  Mathetes  f  (Pro 
fessor  Wilson),  and  the  other  on  Epitaphs,  republished 
in  the  Notes  to  "  The  Excursion."  Here  also  he  wrote 
his  "Description  of  the  Scenery  of  the  Lakes."  Perhaps 
a  truer  explanation  of  the  comparative  silence  of  Words 
worth's  Muse  during  these  years  is  to  be  found  in  the 
intense  interest  which  he  took  in  current  events,  whose 
variety,  picturesqueness,  and  historical  significance  were 
enough  to  absorb  all  the  energies  of  his  imagination. 

In  the  spring  of  1811  Wordsworth  removed  to  the 
Parsonage  at  Grasmere.  Here  he  remained  two  years, 
and  here  he  had  his  second  intimate  experience  of  sor 
row  in  the  loss  of  two  of  his  children,  Catharine  and 
Thomas,  one  of  whom  died  4th  June,  and  the  other  1st 
December,  1812.J  Early  in  1813  he  bought  Rydal 
Mount,  and,  having  removed  thither,  changed  his  abode 
no  more  during  the  rest  of  his  life.  In  March  of  this 
year  he  was  appointed  Distributor  of  Stamps  for  the 
county  of  Westmoreland,  an  office  whose  receipts  ren 
dered  him  izidependent,  and  whose  business  he  was  able 
to  do  by  deputy,  thus  leaving  him  ample  leisure  for 
nobler  duties.  De  Quincey  speaks  of  this  appointment 
as  an  instance  of  the  remarkable  good  luck  which  waited 

*  "  Wordsworth's  pamphlet  will  fail  of  producing  any  general  effect, 
because  the  sentences  are  long  and  involved ;  and  his  friend  De 
Quincey,  who  corrected  the  press,  has  rendered  them  more  obscure 
by  an  unusual  system  of  punctuation."  (Southey  to  Scott,  30th  July, 
1809. )  The  tract  is,  as  Southey  hints,  heavy. 

t  The  first  essay  in  the  third  volume  of  the  second  edition. 
J  Wordsworth's  children  were,  — 

John,  born  18th  June,  1803 ;  still  living  ;  a  clergyman. 
Dorothy,  born  16th  August,  1804  ;  died  9th  July,  1847. 
Thomas,  born  16th  June,  1806;  died  1st  December,  1812. 
Catharine,  born  6th  September,  1808  ;  died  4th  June,  1812. 
William,  born  12th  May,  1810  ;  succeeded  his  father  as  Stamp- 
Distributor. 


232  WORDSWORTH. 

upon  "Wordsworth  through  his  whole  life.  In  our  view 
it  is  only  another  illustration  of  that  scripture  which 
describes  the  righteous  as  never  forsaken.  Good  luck 
is  the  willing  handmaid  of  upright,  energetic  charac 
ter,  and  conscientious  observance  of  duty.  Wordsworth 
owed  his  nomination  to  the  friendly  exertions  of  the 
Earl  of  Lonsdale,  who  desired  to  atone  as  far  as  might 
be  for  the  injustice  of  the  first  Earl,  and  who  respected 
the  honesty  of  the  man  more  than  he  appreciated  the 
originality  of  the  poet.*  The  Collectorship  at  White- 
haven  (a  more  lucrative  office)  was  afterwards  offered  to 
Wordsworth,  and  declined.  He  had  enough  for  inde 
pendence,  and  wished  nothing  more.  Still  later,  on  the 
death  of  the  Stamp-Distributor  for  Cumberland,  a  part 
of  that  district  was  annexed  to  Westmoreland,  and 
Wordsworth's  income  was  raised  to  something  more  than 
£  1,000  a  year. 

In  1814  he  made  his  second  tour  in  Scotland,  visiting 
Yarrow  in  company  with  the  Ettrick  Shepherd.  During 
this  year  "the  Excursion"  was  published,  in  an  edition 
of  five  hundred  copies,  which  supplied  the  demand  for 
six  years.  Another  edition  of  the  same  number  of"  cop 
ies  was  published  in  1827,  and  not  exhausted  till  1834. 
In  1815  "The  White  Doe  of  Rylstone"  appeared,  and 
in  1816  "A  Letter  to  a  Friend  of  Burns,"  in  which 
Wordsworth  gives  his  opinion  upon  the  limits  to  be  ob 
served  by  the  biographers  of  literary  men.  It  contains 
many  valuable  suggestions,  but  allows  hardly  scope 
enough  for  personal  details,  to  which  he  was  constitu- 

*  Good  luck  (in  the  sense  of  Chance)  seems  properly  to  be  the  oc 
currence  of  Opportunity  to  one  who  has  neither  deserved  nor  knows 
how  to  use  it.  In  such  hands  it  commonly  turns  to  ill  luck.  Moore's 
Bermudan  appointment  is  an  instance  of  it.  Wordsworth  had  a  sound 
common-sense  and  practical  conscientiousness,  which  enabled  him  to 
fill  his  office  as  well  as  Dr.  Franklin  could  have  done.  A  fitter  man 
could  not  have  been  found  in  Westmoreland. 


WOKDSWOKTH.  233 

tionally  indifferent.*  Nearly  the  same  date  may  be  as 
cribed  to  a  rhymed  translation  of  the  first  three  books 
of  the  ^Eneid,  a  specimen  of  which  was  printed  in  the 
Cambridge  "Philological  Museum"  (1832).  In  1819 
"  Peter  Bell,"  written  twenty  years  before,  was  published, 
and,  perhaps  in  consequence  of  the  ridicule  of  the  re 
viewers,  found  a  more  rapid  sale  than  any  of  his  previous 
volumes.  "  The  Wagoner,"  printed  in  the  same  year, 
was  less  successful.  His  next  publication  was  the  vol 
ume  of  Sonnets  on  the  river  Duddon,  with  some  miscel 
laneous  poems,  1820.  A  tour  on  the  Continent  in  1820 
furnished  the  subjects  for  another  collection,  published 
in  1822.  This  was  followed  in  the  same  year  by  the 
volume  of  "  Ecclesiastical  Sketches."  His  subsequent 
publications  were  "Yarrow  Revisited,"  1835,  and  the 
tragedy  of  "The  Borderers,"  1842. 

During  all  these  years  his  fame  was  increasing  slowly 
but  steadily,  and  his  age  gathered  to  itself  the  reverence 
and  the  troops  of  friends  which  his  poems  and  the  nobly 
simple  life  reflected  in  them  deserved.  Public  honors 
followed  private  appreciation.  In  1838  the  University 
of  Dublin  conferred  upon  him  the  degree  of  D.  C.  L.  In 
1839  Oxford  did  the  same,  and  the  reception  of  the  poet 
(now  in  his  seventieth  year)  at  the  University  was  en 
thusiastic.  In  1842  he  resigned  his  office  of  Stamp-Dis 
tributor,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  the  honor  of  putting 
him  upon  the  civil  list  for  a  pension  of  £  300.  In  1843 
he  was  appointed  Laureate,  with  the  express  understand 
ing  that  it  was  a  tribute  of  respect,  involving  no  duties 
except  such  as  might  be  self-imposed.  His  only  official 
production  was  an  Ode  for  the  installation  of  Prince 
Albert  as  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Cambridge. 
His  life  was  prolonged  yet  seven  years,  almost,  it  should 

*  "  I  am  not  one  who  much  or  oft  delight 
In  personal  talk." 


234  WORDSWOKTH. 

seem,  that  he  might  receive  that  honor  which  he  had 
truly  conquered  for  himself  by  the  unflinching  bravery 
of  a  literary  life  of  half  a  century,  unparalleled  for  the 
scorn  with  which  its  labors  were  received,  and  the  vic 
torious  acknowledgment  which  at  last  crowned  them. 
Surviving  nearly  all  his  contemporaries,  he  had,  if  ever 
any  man  had,  a  foretaste  of  immortality,  enjoying  in  a 
sort  his  own  posthumous  renown,  for  the  hardy  slow 
ness  of  its  growth  gave  a  safe  pledge  of  its  durability. 
He  died  on  the  23d  of  April,  1850,  the  anniversary  of 
the  death  of  Shakespeare. 

We  have  thus  briefly  sketched  the  life  of  Wordsworth, 
—  a  life  uneventful  even  for  a  man  of  letters ;  a  life  like 
that  of  an  oak,  of  quiet  self-development,  throwing  out 
stronger  roots  toward  the  side  whence  the  prevailing 
storm-blasts  blow,  and  of  tougher  fibre  in  proportion  to 
the  rocky  nature  of  the  soil  in  which  it  grows.  The  life 
and  growth  of  his  mind,  and  the  influences  which  shaped 
it,  are  to  be  looked  for,  even  more  than  is  the  case  with 
most  poets,  in  his  works,  for  he  deliberately  recorded 
them  there. 

Of  his  personal  characteristics  little  is  related.  He 
was  somewhat  above  the  middle  height,  but,  according 
to  De  Quincey,  of  indifferent  figure,  the  shoulders  being 
narrow  and  drooping.  His  finest  feature  was  the  eye, 
which  was  gray  and  full  of  spiritual  light.  Leigh  Hunt 
says  :  "  I  never  beheld  eyes  that  looked  so  inspired,  so 
supernatural.  They  were  like  fires,  half  .burning,  half 
smouldering,  with  a  sort  of  acrid  fixture  of  regard.  One 
might  imagine  Ezekiel  or  Isaiah  to  have  had  such  eyes." 
Southey  tells  us  that  he  had  no  sense  of  smell,  and 
Haydon  that  he  had  none  of  form.  The  best  likeness 
of  him,  in  De  Quincey's  judgment,  is  the  portrait  of 
Milton  prefixed  to  Richardson's  notes  on  Paradise  Lost. 
He  was  active  in  his  habits,  composing  in  the  open  air, 


WORDSWORTH.  235 

and  generally  dictating  his  poems.  His  daily  life  was 
regular,  simple,  and  frugal ;  his  manners  were  dignified 
and  kindly;  and  in  his  letters  and  recorded  conversa 
tions  it  is  remarkable  how  little  that  was  personal 
entered  into  his  judgment  of  contemporaries. 

The  true  rank  of  Wordsworth  among  poets  is,  per 
haps,  not  even  yet  to  be  fairly  estimated,  so  hard  is  it 
to  escape  into  the  quiet  hall  of  judgment  uninflamed  by 
the  tumult  of  partisanship  which  besets  the  doors. 

Coming  to  manhood,  predetermined  to  be  a  great  poet, 
at  a  time  when  the  artificial  school  of  poetry  was  en 
throned  with  all  the  authority  of  long  succession  and 
undisputed  legitimacy,  it  was  almost  inevitable  that 
Wordsworth,  who,  both  by  nature  and  judgment  was  a 
rebel  against  the  existing  order,  should  become  a  parti 
san.  Unfortunately,  he  became  not  only  the  partisan 
of  a  system,  but  of  William  Wordsworth  as  its  represent 
ative.  Right  in  general  principle,  he  thus  necessarily 
became  wrong  in  particulars.  Justly  convinced  that 
greatness  only  achieves  its  ends  by  implicitly  obeying 
its  own  instincts,  he  perhaps  reduced  the  following  his 
instincts  too  much  to  a  system,  mistook  his  own  resent 
ments  for  the  promptings  of  his  natural  genius,  and,  com 
pelling  principle  to  the  measure  of  his  own  temperament 
or  even  of  the  controversial  exigency  of  the  moment,  fell 
sometimes  into  the  error  of  making  naturalness  itself 
artificial.  If  a  poet  resolve  to  be  original,  it  will  end 
commonly  in  his  being  merely  peculiar. 

Wordsworth  himself  departed  more  and  more  in  prac 
tice,  as  he  grew  older,  from  the  theories  which  he  had 
laid  down  in  his  prefaces ;  *  but  those  theories  undoubt- 

*  How  far  he  swung  backward  toward  the  school  under  whose  influ 
ence  he  grew  up,  and  toward  the  style  against  which  he  had  protested 
so  vigorously,  a  few  examples  will  show.  The  advocate  of  the  lan 
guage  of  common  life  has  a  verse  in  his  Thanksgiving  Ode  which,  if 


236  WORDSWOKTH. 

edly  had  a  great  effect  in  retarding  the  growth  of  his 
fame.  He  had  carefully  constructed  a  pair  of  specta 
cles  through  which  his  earlier  poems  were  to  be  studied, 
and  the  public  insisted  on  looking  through  them  at  his 
mature  works,  and  were  consequently  unable  to  see 
fairly  what  required  a  different  focus.  He  forced  his 
readers  to  come  to  his  poetry  with  a  certain  amount 
of  conscious  preparation,  and  thus  gave  them  before 
hand  the  impression  of  something  like  mechanical  arti 
fice,  and  deprived  them  of  the  contented  repose  of 
implicit  faith.  To  the  child  a  watch  seems  to  be  a 
living  creature ;  but  Wordsworth  would  not  let  his 
readers  be  children,  and  did  injustice  to  himself  by 
giving  them  an  uneasy  doubt  whether  creations  which 
really  throbbed  with  the  very  heart's-blood  of  genius, 
and  were  alive  with  nature's  life  of  life,  were  not  con 
trivances  of  wheels  and  springs.  A  naturalness  which 
we  are  told  to  expect  has  lost  the  crowning  grace  of 
nature.  The  men  who  walked  in  Cornelius  Agrippa's 
visionary  gardens  had  probably  no  more  pleasurable 
emotion  than  that  of  a  shallow  wonder,  or  an  equally 

one  met  with  it  by  itself,  he  would  think  the  achievement  of  some 
later  copyist  of  Pope :  — 

"While  the  tubed  engine  [the  organ]  feels  the  inspiring  blast." 

And  in  "The  Italian  Itinerant  "  and  "The  Swiss  Goatherd"  we  find 
a  thermometer  or  barometer  called 

"  The  well- wrought  scale 
Whose  sentient  tube  instructs  to  time 
A  purpose  to  a  fickle  clime." 

Still  worse  in  the  "  Eclipse  of  the  Sun,"  1821  :— 

"  High  on  her  speculative  tower 
Stood  Science,  waiting  for  the  hour 
When  Sol  was  destined  to  endure 
That  darkening." 

So  in  "The  Excursion," 

"  The  cold  March  wind  raised  in  her  tender  throat 
Viewless  obstructions." 


WORDSWORTH.  237 

shallow  self-satisfaction  in  thinking  they  had  hit  upon 
the  secret  of  the  thaumaturgy ;  but  to  a  tree  that  has 
grown  as  God  willed  we  come  without  a  theory  and  with 
no  botanical  predilections,  enjoying  it  simply  and  thank 
fully  ;  or  the  Imagination  recreates  for  us  its  past 
summers  and  winters,  the  birds  that  have  nested  and 
sung  in  it,  the  sheep  that  have  clustered  in  its  shade, 
the  winds  that  have  visited  it,  the  cloud-bergs  that 
have  drifted  over  it,  and  the  snows  that  have  ermined 
it  in  winter.  The  Imagination  is  a  faculty  that  flouts 
at  foreordination,  and  Wordsworth  seemed  to  do  all  he 
could  to  cheat  his  readers  of  her  company  by  laying  out 
paths  with  a  peremptory  Do  not  step  off  the  gravel  /  at 
the  opening  of  each,  and  preparing  pitfalls  for  every 
conceivable  emotion,  with  guide-boards  to  tell  each 
when  and  where  it  must  be  caught. 

But  if  these  things  stood  in  the  way  of  immediate 
appreciation,  he  had  another  theory  which  interferes 
more  seriously  with  the  total  and  permanent  effect  of 
his  poems.  He  was  theoretically  determined  not  only 
to  be  a  philosophic  poet,  but  to  be  a  great  philosophic 
poet,  and  to  this  end  he  must  produce  an  epic.  Leav 
ing  aside  the  question  whether  the  epic  be  obsolete  or 
not,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  history  of  a  single 
man's  mind  is  universal  enough  in  its  interest  to  fur 
nish  all  the  requirements  of  the  epic  machinery,  and  it 
may  be  more  than  doubted  whether  a  poet's  philosophy 
be  ordinary  metaphysics,  divisible  into  chapter  and 
section.  It  is  rather  something  which  is  more  ener 
getic  in  a  word  than  in  a  whole  treatise,  and  our  hearts 
unclose  themselves  instinctively  at  its  simple  Open 
sesame  !  while  they  would  stand  firm  against  the  read 
ing  of  the  whole  body  of  philosophy.  In  point  of  fact, 
the  one  element  of  greatness  which  "  The  Excursion  " 
possesses  indisputably  is  heaviness.  It  is  only  the  epi- 


238  WORDSWORTH. 

sodes  that  are  universally  read,  and  the  effect  of  these 
is  diluted  by  the  connecting  and  accompanying  lectures 
on  metaphysics.  Wordsworth  had  his  epic  mould  to 
fill,  and,  like  Benvenuto  Cellini  in  casting  his  Perseus, 
was  forced  to  throw  in  everything,  debasing  the  metal, 
lest  it  should  run  short.  Separated  from  the  rest,  the 
episodes  are  perfect  poems  in  their  kind,  and  without 
example  in  the  language. 

Wordsworth,  like  most  solitary  men  of  strong  minds, 
was  a  good  critic  of  the  substance  of  poetry,  but  some 
what  niggardly  in  the  allowance  he  made  for  those  sub 
sidiary  qualities  which  make  it  the  charmer  of  leisure 
and  the  employment  of  minds  without  definite  object. 
It  may  be  doubted,  indeed,  whether  he  set  much  store 
by  any  contemporary  writing  but  his  own,  and  whether 
he  did  not  look  upon  poetry  too  exclusively  as  an  exer 
cise  rather  of  the  intellect  than  as  a  nepenthe  of  the 
imagination.*  He  says  of  himself,  speaking  of  his 

youth  :  — 

"  In  fine, 

I  was  a  better  judge  of  thoughts  than  words, 
Misled  in  estimating  words,  not  only 
By  common  inexperience  of  youth, 
But  by  the  trade  in  classic  niceties, 
The  dangerous  craft  of  culling  term  and  phrase 
Prom  languages  that  want  the  living  voice 
To  carry  meaning  to  the  natural  heart; 
To  tell  us  what  is  passion,  what  is  truth, 
What  reason,  what  simplicity  and  sense."  t 

Though  he  here  speaks  in  the  preterite  tense,  this  was 
always  true  of  him,  and  his  thought  seems  often  to  lean 
upon  a  word  too  weak  to  bear  its  weight.  No  reader 
of  adequate  insight  can  help  regretting  that  he  did  not 
earlier  give  himself  to  "  the  trade  of  classic  niceties." 

*  According  toLandor,  he  pronounced  all  Scott's  poetry  to  be  "not 
worth  five  shillings." 
t  Prelude,  Book  VI. 


WORDSWORTH.  239 

It  was  precisely  this  which  gives  to  the  blank-verse  of 
Landor  the  severe  dignity  and  reserved  force  which 
alone  among  later  poets  recall  the  tune  of  Milton,  and 
to  which  Wordsworth  never  attained.  Indeed,  Words 
worth's  blank-verse  (though  the  passion  be  profounder) 
is  always  essentially  that  of  Cowper.  They  were  alike 
also  in  their  love  of  outward  nature  and  of  simple  things. 
The  main  difference  between  them  is  one  of  scenery 
rather  than  of  sentiment,  between  the  life-long  familiar 
of  the  mountains  and  the  dweller  on  the  plain. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  Wordsworth  the  very 
highest  powers  of  the  poetic  mind  were  associated  with 
a  certain  tendency  to  the  diffuse  and  commonplace.  It 
is  in  the  understanding  (always  prosaic)  that  the  great 
golden  veins  of  his  imagination  are  imbedded.*  He 
wrote  too  much  to  write  always  well ;  for  it  is  not  a 
great  Xerxes-army  of  words,  but  a  compact  Greek  ten 
thousand,  that  march  safely  down  to  posterity.  He  set 
tasks  to  his  divine  faculty,  which  is  much  the  same  as 
trying  to  make  Jove's  eagle  do  the  service  of  a  clucking 
hen.  Throughout  "  The  Prelude "  and  "  The  Excur 
sion  "  he  seems  striving  to  bind  the  wizard  Imagination 
with  the  sand-ropes  of  dry  disquisition,  and  to  have 
forgotten  the  potent  spell-word  which  would  make  the 
particles  cohere.  There  is  an  arenaceous  quality  in  the 
style  which  makes  progress  wearisome.  Yet  with  what 
splendors  as  of  mountain-sunsets  are  we  rewarded  ! 
what  golden  rounds  of  verse  do  we  not  see  stretching 

*  This  was  instinctively  felt,  even  by  his  admirers.  Miss  Martineau 
said  to  Crabb  Robinson  in  1839,  speaking  of  Wordsworth's  conversa 
tion  :  "Sometimes  he  is  annoying  from  the  pertinacity  with  which  he 
dwells  on  trifles  ;  at  other  times  he  flows  on  in  the  utmost  grandeur, 
leaving  a  strong  impression  of  inspiration."  Robinson  tells  us  that  he 
read  "  Resolution  "  and  "  Independence  "  to  a  lady  who  was  affected 
by  it  even  to  tears,  and  then  said,  "  I  have  not  heard  anything  for 
years  that  so  much  delighted  me  ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  not  poetry." 


240  WORDSWORTH. 

heavenward  with  angels  ascending  and  descending ! 
what  haunting  harmonies  hover  around  us  deep  and 
eternal  like  the  undying  barytone  of  the  sea !  and  if 
we  are  compelled  to  fare  through  sands  and  desert 
wildernesses,  how  often  do  we  not  hear  airy  shapes  that 
syllable  our  names  with  a  startling  personal  appeal  to 
our  highest  consciousness  and  our  noblest  aspiration, 
such  as  we  wait  for  in  vain  in  any  other  poet ! 

Take  from  Wordsworth  all  which  an  honest  criticism 
cannot  but  allow,  and  what  is  left  will  show  how  truly 
great  he  was.  He  had  no  humor,  no  dramatic  power, 
and  his  temperament  was  of  that  dry  and  juiceless 
quality,  that  in  all  his  published  correspondence  you 
shall  not  find  a  letter,  but  only  essays.  If  we  consider 
carefully  where  he  was  most  successful,  we  shall  find 
that  it  was  not  so  much  in  description  of  natural 
scenery,  or  delineation  of  character,  as  in  vivid  expres 
sion  of  the  effect  produced  by  external  objects  and 
events  upon  his  own  mind,  and  of  the  shape  and  hue 
(perhaps  momentary)  which  they  in  turn  took  from  his 
mood  or  temperament.  His  finest  passages  are  always 
monologues.  He  had  a  fondness  for  particulars,  and 
there  are  parts  of  his  poems  which  remind  us  of  local 
histories  in  the  undue  relative  importance  given  to 
trivial  matters.  He  was  the  historian  of  Wordsworth- 
shire.  This  power  of  particularization  (for  it  is  as  truly 
a  power  as  generalization)  is  what  gives  such  vigor  and 
greatness  to  single  lines  and  sentiments  of  Wordsworth, 
and  to  poems  developing  a  single  thought  or  sentiment. 
It  was  this  that  made  him  so  fond  of  the  sonnet.  That 
sequestered  nook  forced  upon  him  the  limits  which  his 
fecundity  (if  I  may  not  say  his  garrulity)  was  never  self- 
denying  enough  to  impose  on  itself.  It  suits  his  solitary 
and  meditative  temper,  and  it  was  there  that  Lamb  (an 
admirable  judge  of  what  was  permanent  in  literature) 


WORDSWOKTH.  241 

liked  him  best.  Its  narrow  bounds,  but  fourteen  paces 
from  end  to  end,  turn  into  a  virtue  his  too  common  fault 
of  giving  undue  prominence  to  every  passing  emotion. 
He  excels  in  monologue,  and  the  law  of  the  sonnet  tem 
pers  monologue  with  mercy.  In  "  The  Excursion"  we  are 
driven  to  the  subterfuge  of  a  French  verdict  of  extenu 
ating  circumstances.  His  mind  had  not  that  reach  and 
elemental  movement  of  Milton's,  which,  like  the  trade- 
wind,  gathered  to  itself  thoughts  and  images  like  stately 
fleets  from  every  quarter ;  some  deep  with  silks  and 
spicery,  some  brooding  over  the  silent  thunders  of  their 
battailous  armaments,  but  all  swept  forward  in  their 
destined  track,  over  the  long  billows  of  his  verse,  every 
inch  of  canvas  strained  by  the  unifying  breath  of  their 
common  epic  impulse.  It  was  an  organ  that  Milton 
mastered,  mighty  in  compass,  capable  equally  of  the 
trumpet's  ardors  ,or  the  slim  delicacy  of  the  flute,  and 
sometimes  it  bursts  forth  in  great  crashes  through  his 
prose,  as  if  he  touched  it  for  solace  in  the  intervals  of 
his  toil.  If  Wordsworth  sometimes  puts  the  trumpet  to 
his  lips,  yet  he  lays  it  aside  soon  and  willingly  for  his 
appropriate  instrument,  the  pastoral  reed.  And  it  is 
not  one  that  grew  by  any  vulgar  stream,  but  that  which 
Apollo  breathed  through,  tending  the  flocks  of  Admetus, 
—  that  which  Pan  endowed  with  every  melody  of  the 
visible  universe,  —  the  same  in  which  the  soul  of  the 
despairing  nymph  took  refuge  and  gifted  with  her  dual 
nature,  —  so  that  ever  and  anon,  amid  the  notes  of  hu 
man  joy  or  sorrow,  there  comes  suddenly  a  deeper  and 
almost  awful  tone,  thrilling  us  into  dim  consciousness  of 
a  forgotten  divinity. 

Wordsworth's   absolute  want  of  humor,  while    it   no 
doubt  confirmed  his  self-confidence  by  making  him  in 
sensible  both  to  the  comical  incongruity  into  which  he 
was  often  led  by  his  eai'lier  theory  concerning  the  lan- 
11 


242  WOKDSWOKTH. 

guage  of  poetry  and  to  the  not  unnatural  ridicule  called 
forth  by  it,  seems  to  have  been  indicative  of  a  certain 
dulness  of  perception  in  other  directions.*  We  cannot 
help  feeling  that  the  material  of  his  nature  was  essen 
tially  prose,  which,  in  his  inspired  moments,  he  had  the 

*  Nowhere  is  this  displayed  with  more  comic  self-complacency  than 
when  he  thought  it  needful  to  rewrite  the  ballad  of  Helen  of  Kir- 
connel,  —  a  poem  hardly  to  be  matched  in  any  language  for  swiftness 
of  movement  and  savage  sincerity  of  feeling.  Its  shuddering  com 
pression  is  masterly.  Compare 

"  Curst  be  the  heart  that  thought  the  thought, 
And  curst  the  hand  that  fired  the  shot, 
When  in  my  arms  burd  Helen  dropt, 

That  died  to  succor  me  ! 
O,  think  ye  not  my  heart  was  sair 
When  my  love  dropt  down  and  spake  na  mair  ?  " 

compare  this  with,  — 

"  Proud  Gordon  cannot  bear  the  thoughts 
That  through  his  brain  are  travelling, 
And,  starting  up,  to  Bruce's  heart 

He  launched  a  deadly  javelin  : 
Fair  Ellen  saw  it  when  it  came, 
And,  stepping  forth  to  meet  the  same, 
Did  with  her  body  cover 
The  Youth,  her  chosen  lover. 

And  Bruce  (as  soon  as  he  had  stain. 
The  Gordon)  sailed  away  to  Spain, 
And  fought  with  rage  incessant 
Against  the  Moorish  Crescent " 

These  are  surely  the  verses  of  an  attorney's  clerk  "penning  a 
stanza  when  he  should  engross."  It  will  be  noticed  that  Wordsworth 
here  also  departs  from  his  earlier  theory  of  the  language  of  poetry  by 
substituting  a  javelin  for  a  bullet  as  less  modern  and  familiar.  Had 
he  written,  — 

"  And  Gordon  never  gave  a  hint, 
But,  having  somewhat  picked  his  flint, 
Let  fly  the  fatal  bullet 
That  killed  that  lovely  pullet," 

it  would  hardly  have  seemed  more  like  a  parody  than  the  rest.  He 
shows  the  same  insensibility  in  a  note  upon  the  Ancient  Mariner  in 
the  second  edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads:  "The  poem  of  my  friend 
has  indeed  great  defects;  first,  that  the  principal  person  has  no  dis 
tinct  character,  either  in  his  profession  of  mariner,  or  as  a  human 


WORDSWORTH.  243 

power  of  transmuting,  but  which,  whenever  the  inspira 
tion  failed  or  was  factitious,  remained  obstinately  leaden. 
The  normal  condition  of  many  poets  would  seem  to 
approach  that  temperature  to  which  Wordsworth's  mind 
could  be  raised  only  by  the  white  heat  of  profoundly 
inward  passion.  And  in  proportion  to  the  intensity 
needful  to  make  his  nature  thoroughly  aglow  is  the 
very  high  quality  of  his  best  verses.  They  seem  rather 
the  productions  of  nature  than  of  man,  and  have  the 
lastingness  of  such,  delighting  our  age  with  the  same 
startle  of  newness  and  beauty  that  pleased  our  youth. 
Is  it  his  thought  1  It  has  the  shifting  inward  lustre  of 
diamond.  Is  it  his  feeling]  It  is  as  delicate  as  the 
impressions  of  fossil  ferns.  He  seems  to  have  caught 
and  fixed  forever  in  immutable  grace  the  most  evanes 
cent  and  intangible  of  our  intuitions,  the  very  ripple- 
marks  on  the  remotest  shores  of  being.  But  this 
intensity  of  mood  which  insures  high  quality  is  by 
its  very  nature  incapable  of  prolongation,  and  Words 
worth,  in  endeavoring  it,  falls  more  below  himself,  and 
is,  more  even  than  many  poets  his  inferiors  in  imagina 
tive  quality,  a  poet  of  passages.  Indeed,  one  cannot 
help  having  the  feeling  sometimes  that  the  poem  is 
there  for  the  sake  of  these  passages,  rather  than  that 
these  are  the  natural  jets  and  elations  of  a  mind  ener 
gized  by  the  rapidity  of  its  own  motion.  In  other  words, 
the  happy  couplet  or  gracious  image  seems  not  to  spring 
from  the  inspiration  of  the  poem  conceived  as  a  whole, 

being  who,  having  been  long  under  the  control  of  supernatural  impres 
sions,  might  be  supposed  himself  to  partake  of  something  super 
natural;  secondly,  that  he  does  not  act,  but  is  continually  acted 
upon;  thirdly,  that  the  events,  having  no  necessary  connection,  do 
not  produce  each  other;  and  lastly,  that  the  imagery  is  somewhat 
laboriously  accumulated."  Here  is  an  indictment,  to  be  sure,  and 
drawn,  plainly  enough,  by  the  attorney's  clerk  aforenamed.  One 
would  think  that  the  strange  charm  of  Coleridge's  most  truly  original 
poems  lay  in  this  very  emancipation  from  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect. 


244  WORDSWORTH. 

but  rather  to  have  dropped  of  itself  into  the  mind  of 
the  poet  in  one  of  his  rambles,  who  then,  in  a  less  rapt 
mood,  has  patiently  built  up  around  it  a  setting  of 
verse  too  often  ungraceful  in  form  and  of  a  material 
whose  cheapness  may  cast  a  doubt  on  the  priceless 
quality  of  the  gem  it  encumbers.*  During  the  most 
happily  productive  period  of  his  life,  Wordsworth  was 
impatient  of  what  may  be  called  the  mechanical  portion 
of  his  art.  His  wife  and  sister  seem  from  the  first  to 
have  been  his  scribes.  In  later  years,  he  had  learned 
and  often  insisted  on  the  truth  that  poetry  was  an  art 
no  less  than  a  gift,  and  corrected  his  poems  in  cold 
blood,  sometimes  to  their  detriment.  But  he  certainly 
had  more  of  the  vision  than  of  the  faculty  divine,  and 
was  always  a  little  numb  on  the  side  of  form  and 
proportion.  Perhaps  his  best  poem  in  these  respects 
is  the  "  Laodamia,"  and  it  is  not  uninstructive  to  learn 
from  his  own  lips  that  "  it  cost  him  more  trouble  than 
almost  anything  of  equal  length  he  had  ever  written." 
His  longer  poems  (miscalled  epical)  have  no  more  inti 
mate  bond  of  union  than  their  more  or  less  immediate 
relation  to  his  own  personality.  Of  character  other 
than  his  own  he  had  but  a  faint  conception,  and  all 
the  personages  of  "  The  Excursion  "  that  are  not  Words 
worth  are  the  merest  shadows  of  himself  upon  mist,  for 
his  self-concentrated  nature  was  incapable  of  projecting 
itself  into  the  consciousness  of  other  men  and  seeing 
the  springs  of  action  at  their  source  in  the  recesses  of 
individual  character.  The  best  parts  of  these  longer 
poems  are  bursts  of  impassioned  soliloquy,  and  his 

*  "  A  hundred  times  when,  roving  high  and  low, 
I  have  been  harassed  with  the  toil  of  verse, 
Much  pains  and  little  progress,  and  at  once 
Some  lovely  Image  in  the  song  rose  up, 
Full-formed,  like  Venus  rising  from  the  sea." 

Prelude,  Book  IV. 


.       WORDSWORTH.  245 

fingers  were  always  clumsy  at  the  callida  junctura. 
The  stream  of  narration  is  sluggish,  if  varied  by  times 
with  pleasing  reflections  (viridesque  placido  cequore  syl- 
vas)  ;  we  are  forced  to  do  our  own  rowing,  and  only 
when  the  current  is  hemmed  in  by  some  narrow  gorge 
of  the  poet's  personal  consciousness  do  we  feel  ourselves 
snatched  along  on  the  smooth  but  impetuoxis  rush  of 
unmistakable  inspiration.  The  fact  that  what  is  pre 
cious  in  Wordsworth's  poetry  was  (more  truly  even 
than  with  some  greater  poets  than  he)  a  gift  rather 
than  an  achievement  should  always  be  borne  in  mind 
in  taking  the  measure  of  his  power.  I  know  not 
whether  to  call  it  height  or  depth,  this  peculiarity  of 
his,  but  it  certainly  endows  those  parts  of  his  work 
which  we  should  distinguish  as  Wordsworthian  with  an 
unexpectedness  and  impressiveness  of  originality  such 
as  we  feel  in  the  presence  of  Nature  herself.  He  seems 
to  have  been  half  conscious  of  this,  and  recited  his  own 
poems  to  all  comers  with  an  enthusiasm  of  wondering 
admiration  that  would  have  been  profoundly  comic* 
but  for  its  simple  sincerity  and  for  the  fact  that  William 
Wordsworth,  Esquire,  of  Rydal  Mount,  was  one  person, 
and  the  William  Wordsworth  whom  he  so  heartily  rev 
erenced  quite  another.  We  recognize  two  voices  in  him, 
as  Stephano  did  in  Caliban.  There  are  Jeremiah  and 
his  scribe  Baruch.  If  the  prophet  cease  from  dictating, 
the  amanuensis,  rather  than  be  idle,  employs  his  pen  in 
jotting  down  some  anecdotes  of  his  master,  how  he  one 
day  went  out  and  saw  an  old  woman,  and  the  next  day 
did  not,  and  so  came  home  and  dictated  some  verses  on 

*  Mr.  Emerson  tells  us  that  he  was  at  first  tempted  to  smile,  and 
Mr.  Ellis  Yarnall  (who  saw  him  in  his  eightieth  year)  says,  "  These 
quotations  [from  his  own  works]  he  read  in  a  way  that  much  impressed 
me  ;  it  seemed  almost  as  if  he  were  awed  by  the  greatness  of  his  own 
power,  the  gifts  with  which  he  had  been  endowed."  (The  italics  are 
mine.) 


246  WORDSWORTH. 

this  ominous  phenomenon,  and  how  another  day  he  saw 
a  cow.  These  marginal  annotations  have  been  carelessly 
taken  up  into  the  text,  have  been  religiously  held  by  the 
pious  to  be  orthodox  scripture,  and  by  dexterous  exege 
sis  have  been  made  to  yield  deeply  oracular  meanings. 
Presently  the  real  prophet  takes  up  the  word  again  and 
speaks  as  one  divinely  inspired,  the  Voice  of  a  higher 
and  invisible  power.  Wordsworth's  better  utterances 
have  the  bare  sincerity,  the  absolute  abstraction  from 
time  and  place,  the  immunity  from  decay,  that  belong 
to  the  grand  simplicities  of  the  Bible.  They  seem  not 
more  his  own  than  ours  and  every  man's,  the  word  of 
the  inalterable  Mind.  This  gift  of  his  was  naturally 
very  much  a  matter  of  temperament,  and  accordingly 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  his  finer  product  belongs  to 
the  period  of  his  prime,  ere  Time  had  set  his  lumpish 
foot  on  the  pedal  that  deadens  the  nerves  of  animal 
sensibility.*  He  did  not  grow  as  those  poets  do  in  whom 
the  artistic  sense  is  predominant.  One  of  the  most 
delightful  fancies  of  the  Genevese  humorist,  Toepffer, 
is  the  poet  Albert,  who,  having  had  his  portrait  drawn 
by  a  highly  idealizing  hand,  does  his  best  afterwards 
to  look  like  it.  Many  of  Wordsworth's  later  poems 

*  His  best  poetry  was  written  when  he  was  under  the  immediate 
influence  of  Coleridge.  Coleridge  seems  to  have  felt  this,  for  it  is 
evidently  to  Wordsworth  that  he  alludes  when  he  speaks  of  "  those 
who  have  been  so  well  pleased  that  I  should,  year  after  year,  flow 
with  a  hundred  nameless  rills  into  their  main  stream."  (Letters, 
Conversations,  and  Recollections  of  S.  T.  C.,  Vol.  I.  pp.  5-6.)  "Words 
worth  found  fault  with  the  repetition  of  the  concluding  sound  of  the 
participles  in  Shakespeare's  line  about  bees  : 

'  The  singing  masons  building  roofs  of  gold.' 

This,  he  said,  was  a  line  that  Milton  never  would  have  written. 
Keats  thought,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  repetition  was  in  harmony 
with  the  continued  note  of  the  singers."  (Leigh  Hunt's  Autobiogra 
phy.)  Wordsworth  writes  to  Crabb  Robinson  in  1837,  "My  ear  is 
susceptible  to  the  clashing  of  sounds  almost  to  disease."  One  cannot 
help  thinking  that  his  training  in  these  niceties  was  begun  by  Coleridge. 


WORDSWORTH.  247 

seem  like  rather  unsuccessful  efforts  to  resemble  his 
former  self.  They  would  never,  as  Sir  John  Harrington 
says  of  poetry,  "  keep  a  child  from  play  and  an  old  man 
from  the  chimney-corner."  * 

Chief  Justice  Marshall  once  blandly  interrupted  a 
junior  counsel  who  was  arguing  certain  obvious  points 
of  law  at  needless  length,  by  saying,  "  Brother  Jones, 
there  are  some  things  which  a  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  sitting  in  equity  may  be  presumed  to 
know."  Wordsworth  has  this  fault  of  enforcing  and 
restating  obvious  points  till  the  reader  feels  as  if  his 
own  intelligence  were  somewhat  underrated.  He  is 
over-conscientious  in  giving  us  full  measure,  and  once 
profoundly  absorbed  in  the  sound  of  his  own  voice,  he 
knows  not  when  to  stop.  If  he  feel  himself  flagging, 
he  has  a  droll  way  of  keeping  the  floor,  as  it  were,  by 
asking  himself  a  series  of  questions  sometimes  not  need 
ing,  and  often  incapable  of  answer.  There  are  three 
stanzas  of  such  near  the  close  of  the  First  Part  of  "Peter 
Bell,"  where  Peter  first  catches  a  glimpse  of  the  dead 
body  in  the  water,  all  happily  incongruous,  and  ending 
with  one  which  reaches  the  height  of  comicality  : — 

"  Is  it  a  fiend  that  to  a  stake 
Of  fire  his  desperate  self  is  tethering  ? 
Or  stubborn  spirit  doomed  to  yell, 
In  solitary  ward  or  cell, 
Ten  thousand  miles  from  all  his  brethren  ?" 

The  same  want  of  humor  which  made  him  insensible  to 
incongruity  may  perhaps  account  also  for  the  singular 
unconsciousness  of  disproportion  which  so  often  strikes 
us  in  his  poetry.  For  example,  a  little  farther  on  in 
"  Peter  Bell "  we  find  :  — 

"  Now  —  like  a  tempest-shattered  bark 
That  overwhelmed  and  prostrate  lies, 

*  In  the  Preface  to  his  translation  of  the  Orlando  Furioso. 


248  WOKDSWORTH. 

And  in  a  moment  to  the  verge 
Is  lifted  of  a  foaming  surge  — 
Full  suddenly  the  Ass  doth  rise  ! " 

And  one  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  similes  of  the 
huge  stone,  the  sea-beast,  and  the  cloud,  noble  as  they 
are  in  themselves,  are  somewhat  too  lofty  for  the  service 
to  which  they  are  put* 

The  movement  of  Wordsworth's  mind  was  too  slow 
and  his  mood  to  meditative  for  narrative  poetry.  He 
values  his  own  thoughts  and  reflections  too  much  to 
sacrifice  the  least  of  them  to  the  interests  of  his  story. 
Moreover,  it  is  never  action  that  interests  him,  but  the 
subtle  motives  that  lead  to  or  hinder  it.  "  The  Wag 
oner  "  involuntarily  suggests  a  comparison  with  "  Tarn 
O'Shanter  "  infinitely  to  its  own  disadvantage.  "  Peter 
Bell,"  full  though  it  be  of  profound  touches  and  subtle 
analysis,  is  lumbering  and  disjointed.  Even  Lamb  was 
forced  to  confess  that  he  did  not  like  it.  "  The  White 
Doe,"  the  most  Wordsworthian  of  them  all  in  the  best 
meaning  of  the  epithet,  is  also  only  the  more  truly  so 
for  being  diffuse  and  reluctant.  What  charms  in  Words 
worth  and  will  charm  forever  is  the 

"  Happy  tone 

Of  meditation  slipping  in  between 
The  beauty  coming  and  the  beauty  gone." 

A  few  poets,  in  the  exquisite  adaptation  of  their  words 
to  the  tune  of  our  own  feelings  and  fancies,  in  the  charm 
of  their  manner,  indefinable  as  the  sympathetic  grace  of 
woman,  are  everything  to  us  without  our  being  able  to 
say  that  they  are  much  in  themselves.  They  rather 
narcotize  than  fortify.  Wordsworth  must  subject  our 
mood  to  his  own  before  he  admits  us  to  his  intimacy; 
but,  once  admitted,  it  is  for  life,  and  we  find  ourselves 
in  his  debt,  not  for  what  he  has  been  to  us  in  our  hours 

*  In  "Resolution"  and  "Independence." 


WORDSWORTH.  249 

of  relaxation,  but  for  what  he  has  done  for  us  as  a  re 
inforcement  of  faltering  purpose  and  personal  indepen 
dence  of  character.  His  system  of  a  Nature-cure,  first 
professed  by  Dr.  Jean  Jaques  and  continued  by  Cowper, 
certainly  breaks  down  as  a  whole.  The  Solitary  of  "  The 
Excursion,"  who  has  not  been  cured  of  his  scepticism  by 
living  among  the  medicinal  mountains,  is,  so  far  as  we 
can  see,  equally  proof  against  the  lectures  of  Pedler  and 
Parson.  Wordsworth  apparently  felt  that  this  would 
be  so,  and  accordingly  never  saw  his  way  clear  to  finish 
ing  the  poem.  But  the  treatment,  whether  a  panacea 
or  not,  is  certainly  wholesome  inasmuch  as  it  inculcates 
abstinence,  exercise,  and  uncontaminate  air.  I  am  not 
sure,  indeed,  that  the  Nature-cure  theory  does  not  tend 
to  foster  in  constitutions  less  vigorous  than  Words 
worth's  what  Milton  would  call  a  fugitive  and  clois 
tered  virtue  at  a  dear  expense  of  manlier  qualities. 
The  ancients  and  our  own  Elizabethans,  ere  spiritual 
megrims  had  become  fashionable,  perhaps  made  more 
out  of  life  by  taking  a  frank  delight  in  its  action  and 
passion  and  by  grappling  with  the  facts  of  this  world, 
rather  than  muddling  themselves  over  the  insoluble 
problems  of  another.  If  they  had  not  discovered  the 
picturesque,  as  we  understand  it,  they  found  surprisingly 
fine  scenery  in  man  and  his  destiny,  and  would  have  seen 
something  ludicrous,  it  may  be  suspected,  in  the  spectacle 
of  a  grown  man  running  to  hide  his  head  in  the  apron 
of  the  Mighty  Mother  whenever  he  had  an  ache  in  his 
finger  or  got  a  bruise  in  the  tussle  for  existence. 

But  when,  as  I  have  said,  our  impartiality  has  made 
all  those  qualifications  and  deductions  against  which 
even  the  greatest  poet  may  not  plead  his  privilege, 
what  is  left  to  Wordsworth  is  enough  to  justify  his 
fame.  Even  where  his  genius  is  wrapped  in  clouds, 
the  unconquerable  lightning  of  imagination  struggles 


250  WORDSWOETH. 

through,  flashing  out  unexpected  vistas,  and  illuminat 
ing  the  humdrum  pathway  of  our  daily  thought  with 
a  radiance  of  momentary  consciousness  that  seems  like 
a  revelation.  If  it  be  the  most  delightful  function  of 
the  poet  to  set  our  lives  to  music,  yet  perhaps  he  will 
be  even  more  sure  of  our  maturer  gratitude  if  he  do 
his  part  also  as  moralist  and  philosopher  to  purify  and 
enlighten;  if  he  define  and  encourage  our  vacillating 
perceptions  of  duty ;  if  he  piece  together  our  fragmen 
tary  apprehensions  of  our  own  life  and  that  larger  life 
whose  unconscious  instruments  we  are,  making  of  the 
jumbled  bits  of  our  dissected  map  of  experience  a  co 
herent  chart.  In  the  great  poets  there  is  an  exquisite 
sensibility  both  of  soul  and  sense  that  sympathizes  like 
gossamer  sea-moss  with  every  movement  of  the  element 
in  which  it  floats,  but  which  is  rooted  on  the  solid  rock 
of  our  common  sympathies.  Wordsworth  shows  less  of 
this  finer  feminine  fibre  of  organization  than  one  or  two 
of  his  contemporaries,  notably  than  Coleridge  or  Shelley ; 
but  he  was  a  masculine  thinker,  and  in  his  more  charac 
teristic  poems  there  is  always  a  kernel  of  firm  conclu 
sion  from  far-reaching  principles  that  stimulates  thought 
and  challenges  meditation.  Groping  in  the  dark  pas 
sages  of  life,  we  come  upon  some  axiom  of  his,  as  it  were 
a  wall  that  gives  us  our  bearings  and  enables  us  to  find 
an  outlet.  Compared  with  Goethe  we  feel  that  he  lacks 
that  serene  impartiality  of  mind  which  results  from 
breadth  of  culture ;  nay,  he  seems  narrow,  insular,  almost 
provincial.  He  reminds  us  of  those  saints  of  Dante  who 
gather  brightness  by  revolving  on  their  own  axis.  But 
through  this  very  limitation  of  range  he  gains  perhaps 
in  intensity  and  the  impressiveness  which  results  from 
eagerness  of  personal  conviction.  If  we  read  Words 
worth  through,  as  I  have  just  done,  we  find  ourselves 
changing  our  mind  about  him  at  every  other  page,  so 


WORDSWORTH.  251 

uneven  is  he.  If  we  read  our  favorite  poems  or  pas 
sages  only,  he  will  seem  uniformly  great.  And  even 
as  regards  "  The  Excursion "  we  should  remember  how 
few  long  poems  will  bear  consecutive  reading.  For  my 
part  I  know  of  but  one,  —  the  Odyssey. 

None  of  our  great  poets  can  be  called  popular  in  any 
exact  sense  of  the  word,  for  the  highest  poetry  deals 
with  thoughts  and  emotions  which  inhabit,  like  rarest 
sea-mosses,  the  doubtful  limits  of  that  shore  between 
our  abiding  divine  and  our  fluctuating  human  nature, 
rooted  in  the  one,  but  living  in  the  other,  seldom  laid 
bare,  and  otherwise  visible  only  at  exceptional  moments 
of  entire  calm  and  clearness.  Of  no  other  poet  except 
Shakespeare  have  so  many  phrases  become  household 
words  as  of  Wordsworth.  If  Pope  has  made  current 
more  epigrams  of  worldly  wisdom,  to  Wordsworth  be 
longs  the  nobler  praise  of  having  defined  for  us,  and 
given  us  for  a  daily  possession,  those  faint  and  vague 
suggestions  of  other-worldliness  of  whose  gentle  ministry 
with  our  baser  nature  the  hurry  and  bustle  of  life 
scarcely  ever  allowed  us  to  be  conscious.  He  has  won 
for  himself  a  secure  immortality  by  a  depth  of  intuition 
which  makes  only  the  best  minds  at  their  best  hours 
worthy,  or  indeed  capable,  of  his  companionship,  and 
by  a  homely  sincerity  of  human  sympathy  which  reaches 
the  humblest  heart.  Our  language  owes  him  gratitude 
for  the  habitual  purity  and  abstinence  of  his  style,  and 
we  who  speak  it,  for  having  emboldened  us  to  take  de 
light  in  simple  things,  and  to  trust  ourselves  to  our  own 
instincts.  And  he  hath  his  reward.  It  needs  not  to  bid 

"  Renowned  Chaucer  He  a  thought  more  nigh 
To  rare  Beaumond,  and  learned  Beaumond  lie 
A  little  nearer  Spenser  "  ; 

for  there  is  no  fear  of  crowding  in  that  little  society 
with  whom  he  is  now  enrolled  as  fifth  in  the  succession 
of  the  great  English  Poets. 


MILTON. 


IP  the  biographies  of  literary  men  are  to  assume  the 
bulk  which  Mr.  Masson  is  giving  to  that  of  Milton,  their 
authors  should  send  a  phial  of  elixir  vitce  with  the  first 
volume,  that  a  purchaser  might  have  some  valid  assur 
ance  of  surviving  to  see  the  last.  Mr.  Masson  has  al 
ready  occupied  thirteen  hundred  and  seventy-eight  pages 
in  getting  Milton  to  his  thirty-fifth  year,  and  an  interval 
of  eleven  years  stretches  between  the  dates  of  the  first 
and  second  instalments  of  his  published  labors.  As 
Milton's  literary  life  properly  begins  at  twenty-one,  with 
the  "  Ode  on  the  Nativity,"  and  as  by  far  the  more  im 
portant  part  of  it  lies  between  the  year  at  which  we  are 
arrived  and  his  death  at  the  age  of  sixty-six,  we  might 
seem  to  have  the  terms  given  us  by  which  to  make  a 
rough  reckoning  of  how  soon  we  are  likely  to  see  land. 
But  when  we  recollect  the  baffling  character  of  the  winds 
and  currents  we  have  already  encountered,  and  the  eddies 

*  The  Life  of  John  Milton  :  narrated  in  Connection  with  the  Politi 
cal,  Ecclesiastical,  and  Literary  History  of  his  Time.  By  DAVID  MAS- 
SON,  M.  D.,  LL.  D.,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  English  Literature  in 
the  University  of  Edinburgh.  Vols.  I.,  II.  1638-1643.  London  and 
New  York  :  Macmillan  &  Co.  1871.  8vo.  pp.  xii,  608. 

The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Milton,  edited,  with  Introduction, 
Notes,  and  an  Essay  on  Milton's  English,  by  DAVID  MASSON,  M.  A., 
LL.  D.,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  English  Literature  in  the  University 
of  Edinburgh.  3  vols.  8vo.  Macmillan  &  Co.  1874. 


MILTON.  253 

that  may  at  any  time  slip  us  back  to  the  reformation 
in  Scotland  or  the  settlement  of  New  England ;  when 
we  consider,  moreover,  that  Milton's  life  overlapped  the 
grand  siecle  of  French  literature,  with  its  irresistible 
temptations  to  digression  and  homily  for  a  man  of  Mr. 
Masson's  temperament,  we  may  be  pardoned  if  a  sigh 
of  doubt  and  discouragement  escape  us.  We  envy  the 
secular  leisures  of  Methusaleh,  and  are  thankful  that 
his  biography  at  least  (if  written  in  the  same  longeval 
proportion)  is  irrecoverably  lost  to  us.  What  a  subject 
would  that  have  been  for  a  person  of  Mr.  Masson's  spa 
cious  predilections !  Even  if  he  himself  can  count  on 
patriarchal  prorogations  of  existence,  let  him  hang  a 
print  of  the  Countess  of  Desmond  in  his  study  to  re 
mind  him  of  the  ambushes  which  Fate  lays  for  the 
toughest  of  us.  For  myself,  I  have  not  dared  to  climb 
a  cherry-tree  since  I  began  to  read  his  work.  Even 
with  the  promise  of  a  speedy  third  volume  before  me,  I 
feel  by  no  means  sure  of  living  to  see  Mary  Powell  back 
in  her  husband's  house  ;  for  it  is  just  at  this  crisis  that 
Mr.  Masson,  with  the  diabolical  art  of  a  practised  serial 
writer,  leaves  us  while  he  goes  into  an  exhaustive  ac 
count  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  and  the  political  and 
religious  notions  of  the  Massachusetts  Puritans.  One 
could  not  help  thinking,  after  having  got  Milton  fairly 
through  college,  that  he  was  never  more  mistaken  in  his 
life  than  when  he  wrote, 

"How  soon  hath  Time,  that  subtle  thief  of  youth, 
Stolen  on  his  wing  my  three-and-twentieth  year  ! " 

Or  is  it  Mr.  Masson  who  has  scotched  Time's  wheels  1 

It  is  plain  from  the  Preface  to  the  second  volume  that 
Mr.  Masson  himself  has  an  uneasy  consciousness  that 
something  is  wrong,  and  that  Milton  ought  somehow  to 
be  more  than  a  mere  incident  of  his  own  biography. 


254  MILTON. 

He  tells  us  that,  "  whatever  may  be  thought  by  a  hasty 
person  looking  in  on  the  subject  from  the  outside,  no 
one  can  study  the  life  of  Milton  as  it  ought  to  be  studied 
without  being  obliged  to  study  extensively  and  intimately 
the  contemporary  history  of  England,  and  even  incident 
ally  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  too Thus  on  the 

very  compulsion,  or  at  least  the  suasion,  of  the  biogra 
phy,  a  history  grew  on  my  hands.  It  was  not  in  human 
nature  to  confine  the  historical  inquiries,  once  they  were 
in  progress,  within  the  precise  limits  of  their  demon 
strable  bearing  on  the  biography,  even  had  it  been  pos 
sible  to  determine  these  limits  beforehand ;  and  so  the 
history  assumed  a  co-ordinate  importance  with  me,  was 
pursued  often  for  its  own  sake,  and  became,  though  al 
ways  with  a  sense  of  organic  relation  to  the  biography, 
continuous  in  itself."  If  a  "  hasty  person  "  be  one  who 
thinks  eleven  years  rather  long  to  have  his  button  held 
by  a  biographer  ere  he  begin  his  next  sentence,  I  take 
to  myself  the  sting  of  Mr.  Masson's  covert  sarcasm.  I 
confess  with  shame  a  pusillanimity  that  is  apt  to  flag  if 
a  "  to  be  continued  "  do  not  redeem  its  promise  before 
the  lapse  of  a  quinquennium.  I  could  scarce  await  the 
"  Autocrat "  himself  so  long.  The  heroic  age  of  litera 
ture  is  past,  and  even  a  duodecimo  may  often  prove 
too  heavy  (otov  vvv  ySporoi)  for  the  descendants  of  men 
to  whom  the  folio  was  a  pastime.  But  what  does  Mr. 
Masson  mean  by  "  continuous  "  1  To  me  it  seems  rather 
as  if  his  somewhat  rambling  history  of  the  seventeenth 
century  were  interrupted  now  and  then  by  an  unexpected 
apparition  of  Milton,  who,  like  Paul  Pry,  just  pops  in 
and  hopes  he  does  not  intrude,  to  tell  us  what  he  has 
been  doing  in  the  mean  while.  The  reader,  immersed 
in  Scottish  politics  or  the  schemes  of  Archbishop  Laud, 
is  a  little  puzzled  at  first,  but  reconciles  himself  on  being 
reminded  that  this  fair-haired  young  man  is  the  protag 
onist  of  the  drama.  Pars  minima  est  ipsa  puella  sui. 


MILTON.  255 

If  Goethe  was  right  in  saying  that  every  man  was  a 
citizen  of  his  age  as  well  as  of  his  country,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  in  order  to  understand  the  motives  and 
conduct  of  the  man  we  must  first  make  ourselves  inti 
mate  with  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  We  have  there 
fore  no  fault  to  find  with  the  thoroughness  of  Mr.  Mas- 
son's  "  historical  inquiries."  The  more  thorough  the 
better,  so  far  as  they  were  essential  to  the  satisfactory 
performance  of  his  task.  But  it  is  only  such  contem 
porary  events,  opinions,  or  persons  as  were  really  opera 
tive  on  the  character  of  the  man  we  are  studying  that 
are  of  consequence,  and  we  are  to  familiarize  ourselves 
with  them,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  explaining  them 
as  of  understanding  him.  The  biographer,  especially 
of  a  literary  man,  need  only  mark  the  main  currents 
of  tendency,  without  being  officious  to  trace  out  to  its 
marshy  source  every  runlet  that  has  cast  in  its  tiny 
pitcherful  with  the  rest.  Much  less  should  he  attempt 
an  analysis  of  the  stream  and  to  classify  every  compo 
nent  by  itself,  as  if  each  were  ever  effectual  singly  and 
not  in  combination.  Human  motives  cannot  be  thus 
chemically  cross-examined,  nor  do  we  arrive  at  any  true 
knowledge  of  character  by  such  minute  subdivision  of 
its  ingredients.  Nothing  is  so  essential  to  a  biographer 
as  an  eye  that  can  distinguish  at  a  glance  between  real 
events  that  are  the  levers  of  thought  and  action,  and 
what  Donne  calls  "  unconcern  ing  things,  matters  of 
fact,"  —  between  substantial  personages,  whose  contact 
or  even  neighborhood  is  influential,  and  the  supernume 
raries  that  serve  first  to  fill  up  a  stage  and  afterwards 
the  interstices  of  a  biographical  dictionary. 

"  Time  hath  a  wallet  at  his  hack 
Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  Oblivion." 

Let  the  biographer  keep  his  fingers  off  that  sacred 


256  MILTON. 

and  merciful  deposit,  and  not  renew  for  us  the  bores  of 
a  former  generation  as  if  we  had  not  enough  of  our  own. 
But  if  he  cannot  forbear  that  unwise  inquisitiveness,  we 
may  fairly  complain  when  he  insists  on  taking  us  along 
with  him  in  the  processes  of  his  investigation,  instead 
of  giving  us  the  sifted  results  in  their  bearing  on  the 
life  and  character  of  his  subject,  whether  for  help  or 
hindrance.  We  are  blinded  with  the  dust  of  old  papers 
ransacked  by  Mr.  Masson  to  find  out  that  they  have  no 
relation  whatever  to  his  hero.  He  had  been  wise  if  he 
had  kept  constantly  in  view  what  Milton  himself  says 
of  those  who  gathered  up  personal  traditions  concerning 
the  Apostles  :  "  With  less  fervency  was  studied  what 
Saint  Paul  or  Saint  John  had  written  than  was  listened 
to  one  that  could  say,  '  Here  he  taught,  here  he  stood, 
this  was  his  stature,  and  thus  he  went  habited  ;  and  0, 
happy  this  house  that  harbored  him,  and  that  cold  stone 
whereon  he  rested,  this  village  where  he  wrought  such 
a  miracle.'  ....  Thus  while  all  their  thoughts  were 
poured  out  upon  circumstances  and  the  gazing  after 
such  men  as  had  sat  at  table  with  the  Apostles,  .... 
by  this  means  they  lost  their  time  and  truanted  on  the 
fundamental  grounds  of  saving  knowledge,  as  was  seen 
shortly  in  their  writings."  Mr.  Masson  has  so  poured 
out  his  mind  upon  circumstances,  that  his  work  reminds 
us  of  Allston's  picture  of  Elijah  in  the  Wilderness,  where 
a  good  deal  of  research  at  last  enables  us  to  guess  at  the 
prophet  absconded  like  a  conundrum  in  the  landscape 
where  the  very  ravens  could  scarce  have  found  him  out, 
except  by  divine  commission.  The  figure  of  Milton  be 
comes  but  a  speck  on  the  enormous  canvas  crowded  with 
the  scenery  through  which  he  may  by  any  possibility  be 
conjectured  to  have  passed.  I  will  cite  a  single  example 
of  the  desperate  straits  to  which  Mr.  Masson  is  reduced  in 
order  to  hitch  Milton  on  to  his  own  biography.  He  de- 


MILTON.  257 

votes  the  first  chapter  of  his  Second  Book  to  the  meeting 
of  the  Long  Parliament.  "  Already,"  he  tells  us,  "  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  day,  the  Commons  had  gone  through 
the  ceremony  of  hearing  the  writ  for  the  Parliament  read, 
and  the  names  of  the  members  that  had  been  returned 
called  over  by  Thomas  Wyllys,  Esq.,  the  Clerk  of  the 
Crown  in  Chancery.  His  deputy,  Agar,  Milton's  brother- 
in-law,  may  have  been  in  attendance  on  such  an  occasion. 
During  the  preceding  month  or  two,  at  all  events,  Agar 
and  his  subordinates  in  the  Crown  Office  had  been  un 
usually  busy  with  the  issue  of  the  writs  and  with  the 
other  work  connected  with  the  opening  of  Parliament." 
(Vol.  II.  p.  150.)  Mr.  Masson's  resolute  "  at  all  events  " 
is  very  amusing.  Meanwhile 

"The  hungry  sheep  look  up  and  are  not  fed." 

Augustine  Thierry  has  a  great  deal  to  answer  for,  if 
to  him  we  owe  the  modern  fashion  of  writing  history 
picturesquely.  At  least  his  method  leads  to  most  un 
happy  results  when  essayed  by  men  to  whom  nature  has 
denied  a  sense  of  what  the  picturesque  really  is.  The 
historical  picturesque  does  not  consist,  in  truth  of  cos 
tume  and  similar  accessaries,  but  in  the  grouping,  atti 
tude,  and  expression  of  the  figures,  caught  when  they 
are  unconscious  that  the  artist  is  sketching  them.  The 
moment  they  are  posed  for  a  composition,  unless  by  a 
man  of  genius,  the  life  has  gone  out  of  them.  In  the 
hands  of  an  inferior  artist,  who  fancies  that  imagination 
is  something  to  be  squeezed  out  of  color-tubes,  the  past 
becomes  a  phantasmagoria  of  jackboots,  doublets,  and 
flap-hats,  the  mere  property-room  of  a  deserted  theatre, 
as  if  the  light  had  been  scenical  and  illusory,  the  world 
an  unreal  thing  that  vanished  with  the  foot-lights.  It 
is  the  power  of  catching  the  actors  in  great  events  at 
unawares  that  makes  the  glimpses  given  us  by  contem- 

Q 


258  MILTON. 

poraries  so  vivid  and  precious.  And  St.  Simon,  one  of  the 
great  masters  of  the  picturesque,  lets  us  into  the  secret 
of  his  art  when  he  tells  us  how,  in  that  wonderful  scene 
of  the  death  of  Monseigneur,  he  saw  "  du  premier  coup 
d'oeil  vivement  porte,  tout  ce  qui  leur  echappoit  et  tout 
ce  qui  les  accableroit."  It  is  the  gift  of  producing  this 
reality  that  almost  makes  us  blush,  as  if  we  had  been 
caught  peeping  through  a  keyhole,  and  had  surprised 
secrets  to  which  we  had  no  right,  —  it  is  this  only  that 
can  justify  the  pictorial  method  of  narration.  Mr.  Car- 
lyle  has  this  power  of  contemporizing  himself  with  by 
gone  times,  he  cheats  us  to 

"  Play  with  our  fancies  and  believe  we  see  "  ; 

but  we  find  the  tableaux  vivants  of  the  apprentices  who 
"  deal  in  his  command  without  his  power,"  and  who 
compel  us  to  work  very  hard  indeed  with  our  fancies, 
rather  wearisome.  The  effort  of  weaker  arms  to  shoot 
with  his  mighty  bow  has  filled  the  air  of  recent  litera 
ture  with  more  than  enough  fruitless  twanging. 

Mr.  Masson's  style,  at  best  cumbrous,  becomes  intol 
erably  awkward  when  he  strives  to  make  up  for  the 
want  of  St.  Simon's  premier  coup  d'oeil  by  impertinent 
details  of  what  we  must  call  the  pseudo-dramatic  kind. 
For  example,  does  Hall  profess  to  have  traced  Milton 
from  the  University  to  a  "  suburb  sink "  of  London  ] 
Mr.  Masson  fancies  he  hears  Milton  saying  to  himself, 
"  A  suburb  sink !  has  Hall  or  his  son  taken  the  trouble  to 
walk  all  the  way  down  to  Aldersgate  here,  to  peep  up  the 
entry  where  I  live,  and  so  have  an  exact  notion  of  my 
whereabouts  1  There  has  been  plague  in  the  neighbor 
hood  certainly  ;  and  I  hope  Jane  Yates  had  my  doorstep 
tidy  for  the  visit."  Does  Milton,  answering  Hall's  in 
nuendo  that  he  was  courting  the  graces  of  a  rich  widow, 
tell  us  that  he  would  rather  "  choose  a  virgin  of  mean 


MILTON.  259 

fortunes  honestly  bred  "  ?  Mr.  Masson  ftn-thwith  breaks 
forth  in  a  paroxysm  of  what  we  suppose  to  be  pic- 
turesqueness  in  this  wise  :  "  What  have  we  here  1  Surely 
nothing  less,  if  we  choose  so  to  construe  it,  than  a  mar 
riage  advertisement  !  Ho,  all  ye  virgins  of  England 
(widows  need  not  apply),  here  is  an  opportunity  such 
as  seldom  occurs  :  a  bachelor,  unattached ;  age,  thirty- 
three  years  and  three  or  four  months ;  height  [Milton, 
by  the  way,  would  have  said  hiyhtfi\  middle  or  a  little 
less  ;  personal  appearance  unusually  handsome,  with  fair 
complexion  and  light  auburn  hair ;  circumstances  in 
dependent  ;  tastes  intellectual  and  decidedly  musical ; 
principles  Root-and-Branch !  Was  there  already  any 
young  maiden  in  whose  bosom,,  had  such  an  advertise 
ment  come  in  her  way,  it  would  have  raised  a  conscious 
flutter  1  If  so,  did  she  live  near  Oxford  1 "  If  there  is 
anything  worse  than  an  unimaginative  man  trying  to 
write  imaginatively,  it  is  a  heavy  man  when  he  fancies 
he  is  being  facetious.  He  tramples  out  the  last  spark 
of  cheerfulness  with  the  broad  damp  foot  of  a  hippo 
potamus. 

I  am  no  advocate  of  what  is  called  the  dignity  of  his 
tory,  when  it  means,  as  it  too  often  does,  that  dulness 
has  a  right  of  sanctuary  in  gravity.  Too  well  do  I 
recall  the  sorrows  of  my  youth,  when  I  was  shipped 
in  search  of  knowledge  on  the  long  Johnsonian  swell  of 
the  last  century,  favorable  to  anything  but  the  calm 
digestion  of  historic  truth.  I  had  even  then  an  un 
easy  suspicion,  which  has  ripened  into  certainty,  that 
thoughts  were  never  draped  in  long  skirts  like  babies,  if 
they  were  strong  enough  to  go  alone.  But  surely  there 
should  be  such  a  thing  as  good  taste,  above  all  a  sense 
of  self-respect,  in  the  historian  himself,  that  should  not 
allow  him  to  play  any  tricks  with  the  dignity  of  his 
subject.  A  halo  of  sacredness  has  hitherto  invested  the 


260  MILTON. 

figure  of  Milton,  and  our  image  of  him  has  dwelt  se 
curely  in  ideal  remoteness  from  the  vulgarities  of  life. 
No  diaries,  no  private  letters,  remain  to  give  the  idle 
curiosity  of  after-times  the  right  to  force  itself  on  the 
hallowed  seclusion  of  his  reserve.  That  a  man  whose 
familiar  epistles  were  written  in  the  language  of  Cicero, 
whose  sense  of  personal  dignity  was  so  great  that,  when 
called  on  in  self-defence  to  speak  of  himself,  he  always 
does  it  with  an  epical  stateliness  of  phrase,  and  whose 
self-respect  even  in  youth  was  so  profound  that  it  resem 
bles  the  reverence  paid  by  other  men  to  a  far-off  and 
idealized  character,  —  that  he  should  be  treated  in  this 
offhand  familiar  fashion  by  his  biographer  seems  to 
us  a  kind  of  desecration,  a  violation  of  good  manners 
no  less  than  of  the  laws  of  biographic  art.  Milton  is 
the  last  man  in  the  world  to  be  slapped  on  the  back 
with  impunity.  Better  the  surly  injustice  of  Johnson 
than  such  presumptuous  friendship  as  this.  Let  the 
seventeenth  century,  at  least,  be  kept  sacred  from  the 
insupportable  foot  of  the  interviewer ! 

But  Mr.  Masson,  in  his  desire  to  be  (shall  I  say)  idioma 
tic,  can  do  something  worse  than  what  has  been  hitherto 
qxioted.  He  can  be  even  vulgar.  Discussing  the  motives 
of  Milton's  first  marriage,  he  says,  "Did  he  come  seeking 
his  .£500,  and  did  Mrs.  Powell  heave  a  daughter  at  him?" 
We  have  heard  of  a  woman  throwing  herself  at  a  man's 
head,  and  the  image  is  a  somewhat  violent  one ;  but 
what  is  this  to  Mr.  Masson's  improvement  on  it  ]  It  has 
been  sometimes  affirmed  that  the  fitness  of  an  image 
may  be  tested  by  trying  whether  a  picture  could  be 
made  of  it  or  not.  Mr.  Masson  has  certainly  offered 
a  new  and  striking  subject  to  the  historical  school 
of  British  art.  A  little  further  on,  speaking  of  Mary 
Powell,  he  says,  "  We  have  no  portrait  of  her,  nor  any 
account  of  her  appearance ;  but  on  the  usual  rule  of  the 


MILTON.  261 

elective  affinities  of  opposites,  Milton  being  fair,  we  will 
vote  her  to  have  been  dark-haired."  I  need  say  noth 
ing  of  the  good  taste  of  this  sentence,  but  its  absurdity 
is  heightened  by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Masson  himself  had 
left  us  in  doubt  whether  the  match  was  one  of  con 
venience  or  inclination.  I  know  not  how  it  may  be 
with  other  readers,  but  for  myself  I  feel  inclined  to 
resent  this  hail-fellow-well-met  manner  with  its  jaunty 
"we  will  vote."  In  some  cases,  Mr.  Masson's  indecorums 
in  respect  of  style  may  possibly  be  accounted  for  as  at 
tempts  at  humor  by  one  who  has  an  imperfect  notion  of 
its  ingredients.  In  such  experiments,  to  judge  by  the 
effect,  the  pensive  element  of  the  compound  enters  in  too 
large  an  excess  over  the  hilarious.  Whether  I  have  hit 
upon  the  true  explanation,  or  whether  the  cause  lie  not 
rather  in  a  besetting  velleity  of  the  picturesque  and 
vivid,  I  shall  leave  the  reader  to  judge  by  an  example 
or  two.  In  the  manuscript  copy  of  Milton's  sonnet  in 
which  he  claims  for  his  own  house  the  immunity  which 
the  memory  of  Pindar  and  Euripides  secured  for  other 
walls,  the  title  had  originally  been,  "  On  his  Door  when 
the  City  expected  an  Assault."  Milton  has  drawn  a  line 
through  this  and  substituted  "  When  the  Assault  was  in 
tended  to  the  City."  Mr.  Masson  fancies  "  a  mood  of  jest 
or  semi-jest  in  the  whole  affair";  but  we  think  rather 
that  Milton's  quiet  assumption  of  equality  with  two 
such  famous  poets  was  as  seriously  characteristic  as 
Dante's  ranking  himself  sesto  tra  cotanto  senno.  Mr. 
Masson  takes  advantage  of  the  obliterated  title  to 
imagine  one  of  Prince  Rupert's  troopers  entering  the 
poet's  study  and  finding  some  of  his  "Anti-Episcopal 
pamphlets  that  had  been  left  lying  about  inadvertently. 
'  Oho ! '  the  Cavalier  Captain  might  then  have  said, 
'  Pindar  and  Euripides  are  all  very  well,  by  G — !  I  've 
been  at  college  myself ;  and  when  I  meet  a  gentleman 


262  MILTON. 

and  scholar,  I  hope  I  know  how  to  treat  him ;  but  neither 
Pindar  nor  Euripides  ever  wrote  pamphlets  against  the 
Church  of  England,  by  G — !  It  won't  do,  Mr.  Milton  ! ' " 
This,  it  may  be  supposed,  is  Mr.  Masson's  way  of  being 
funny  and  dramatic  at  the  same  time.  Good  taste  is 
shocked  with  this  barbarous  dissonance.  Could  not  the 
Muse  defend  her  son  1  Again,  when  Charles  I.,  at  Edin 
burgh,  in  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1641,  fills  the  vacant 
English  sees,  we  are  told,  "  It  was  more  than  an  insult ; 
it  was  a  sarcasm !  It  was  as  if  the  King,  while  giving 
Alexander  Henderson  his  hand  to  kiss,  had  winked  his 
royal  eye  over  that  reverend  Presbyter's  back  !  "  Now 
one  can  conceive  Charles  II.  winking  when  he  took  the 
Solemn  League  and  Covenant,  but  never  his  father  un 
der  any  circumstances.  He  may  have  been,  and  I  be 
lieve  he  was,  a  bad  king,  but  surely  we  may  take  Mar- 
veil's  word  for  it,  that 

"  He  nothing  common  did  or  mean," 

upon  any  of  the  "  memorable  scenes  "  of  his  life.  The 
image  is,  therefore,  out  of  all  imaginative  keeping,  and 
vulgarizes  the  chief  personage  in  a  grand  historical 
tragedy,  who,  if  not  a  great,  was  at  least  a  decorous 
actor.  But  Mr.  Masson  can  do  worse  than  this.  Speak 
ing  of  a  Mrs.  Katherine  Chidley,  who  wrote  in  defence 
of  the  Independents  against  Thomas  Edwards,  he  says, 
"  People  wondered  who  this  she-Brownist,  Katherine 
Chidley,  was,  and  did  not  quite  lose  their  interest  in 
her  when  they  found  that  she  was  an  oldish  woman,  and 
a  member  of  some  hole-and-corner  congregation  in  Lon 
don.  Indeed,  she  put  her  nails  into  Mr.  Edwards  with 
some  effect"  Why  did  he  not  say  at  once,  after  the  good 
old  fashion,  that  she  "  set  her  ten  commandments  in  his 
face  "  ]  In  another  place  he  speaks  of  "  Satan  standing 
with  his  staff  around  him."  Mr.  Masson's  style,  a  little 


MILTON.  263 

Eobertsonian  at  best,  naturally  grows  worse  when  forced 
to  condescend  to  every-day  matters.  He  can  no  more' 
dismount  and  walk  than  the  man  in  armor  on  a  Lord 
Mayor's  day.  "  It  [Aldersgate  Street]  stretches  away 
northwards  a  full  fourth  of  a  mile  as  one  continuous 
thoroughfare,  until,  crossed  by  Long  Lane  and  the  Bar 
bican,  it  parts  with  the  name  of  Aldersgate  Street,  and, 
under  the  new  names  of  Goswell  Street  and  Goswell 
Road,  completes  its  tendency  towards  the  suburbs  and  fields 
about  Islington."  What  a  noble  work  might  not  the 
Directory  be  if  composed  on  this  scale  !  The  imagina 
tion  even  of  an  alderman  might  well  be  lost  in  that 
full  quarter  of  a  mile  of  continuous  thoroughfare.  Mr. 
Masson  is  very  great  in  these  passages  of  civic  grandeur ; 
but  he  is  more  surprising,  on  the  whole,  where  he  has  an 
image  to  deal  with.  Speaking  of  Milton's  "  two-handed 
engine"  in  Lycidas,  he  says :  "May  not  Milton,  what 
ever  else  he  meant,  have  meant  a  coming  English  Par 
liament  with  its  two  Houses  1  Whatever  he  meant,  his 
prophecy  had  come  true.  As  he  sat  among  his  books 
in  Aldersgate  Street,  the  two-handed  engine  at  the  door 
of  the  English  Church  was  on  the  swing.  Once,  twice, 
thrice,  it  had  swept  its  arcs  to  gather  energy ;  now  it 
was  on  the  backmost  poise,  and  the  blow  was  to  de 
scend."  One  cannot  help  wishing  that  Mr.  Masson 
would  try  his  hand  on  the  tenth  horn  of  the  beast  in 
Revelation,  or  on  the  time  and  half  a  time  of  Daniel. 
There  is  something  so  consoling  to  a  prophet  in  being 
told  that,  no  matter  what  he  meant,  his  prophecy  had 
come  true,  and  that  he  might  mean  "  whatever  else  "  he 
pleased,  so  long  as  he  may  have  meant  what  we  choose 
to  think  he  did,  reasoning  backward  from  the  assumed 
fulfilment !  But  perhaps  there  may  be  detected  in  Mr. 
Masson's  "  swept  its  arcs  "  a  little  of  that  prophetic  hedg- 
ing-in  vagueness  to  which  he  allows  so  generous  a  lati- 


264  MILTON. 

tude.  How  if  the  "  two-handed  engine,"  after  all,  were  a 
broom  (or  besom,  to  be  more  dignified), 

"  Sweeping  —  vehemently  sweeping, 
No  pause  admitted,  no  design  avowed," 

like  that  wielded  by  the  awful  shape  which  Dion  the 
Syracusan  saw  1  I  make  the  suggestion  modestly, 
though  somewhat  encouraged  by  Mr.  Masson's  system 
of  exegesis,  which  reminds  one  of  the  casuists'  doctrine 
of  probables,  in  virtue  of  which  a  man  may  be  proba- 
biliter  obligatus  and  prdbabiliter  deobligatus  at  the  same 
time.  But  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  instance  of 
Mr.  Masson's  figures  of  speech  is  where  we  are  told  that 
the  king  might  have  established  a  bona  fide  government 
"  by  giving  public  ascendency  to  the  popular  or  Parlia 
mentary  element  in  his  Council,  and  inducing  the  old 
leaven  in  it  either  to  accept  the  new  policy,  or  to  withdraw 
and  become  inactive.'1''  There  is  something  consoling  in 
the  thought  that  yeast  should  be  accessible  to  moral 
suasion.  It  is  really  too  bad  that  bread  should  ever  be 
heavy  for  want  of  such  an  appeal  to  its  moral  sense  as 
should  "  induce  it  to  accept  the  new  policy."  Of  Mr. 
Masson's  unhappy  infection  with  the  vivid  style  an  in 
stance  or  two  shall  be  given  in  justification  of  what  has 
been  alleged  against  him  in  that  particular.  He  says  of 
Loudon  that  "  he  was  committed  to  the  Tower,  where 
for  more  than  two  months  he  lay,  with  as  near  a  pros 
pect  as  ever  prisoner  had  of  a  chop  with  the  execution 
er's  axe  on  a  scaffold  on  Tower  Hill."  I  may  be  over- 
fastidious,  but  the  word  "chop"  offends  my  ears  with 
its  coarseness,  or  if  that  be  too  strong,  has  certainly  the 
unpleasant  effect  of  an  emphasis  unduly  placed.  Old 
Auchinleck's  saying  of  Cromwell,  that  "he  gart  kings 
ken  they  had  a  lith  in  their  necks,"  is  a  good  example 
of  really  vivid  phrase,  suggesting  the  axe  and  the  block, 
and  giving  one  of  those  dreadful  hints  to  the  irnagina- 


MILTON.  265 

tion  which  are  more  powerful  than  any  amount  of  de 
tail,  and  whose  skilful  use  is  the  only  magic  employed 
by  the  masters  of  truly  picturesque  writing.  The  sen 
tence  just  quoted  will  serve  also  as  an  example  of  that 
tendency  to  surplusage  which  adds  to  the  bulk  of  Mr. 
Masson's  sentences  at  the  cost  of  their  effectiveness. 
If  he  had  said  simply  "chop  on  Tower  Hill"  (if  chop 
there  must  be),  it  had  been  quite  enough,  for  we  all 
know  that  the  executioner's  axe  and  £he  scaffold  are 
implied  in  it.  Once  more,  and  I  have  done  with  the 
least  agreeable  part  of  my  business.  Mr.  Masson,  after 
telling  over  again  the  story  of  Strafford  with  needless 
length  of  detail,  ends  thus  :  "On  Wednesday,  the  12th 
of  May,  that  proud  curly  head,  the  casket  of  that  brain 
of  power,  rolled  on  the  scaffold  of  Tower  Hill."  Why 
curly?  Surely  it  is  here  a  ludicrous  impertinence.  This 
careful  thrusting  forward  of  outward  and  unmeaning 
particulars,  in  the  hope  of  giving  that  reality  to  a  pic 
ture  which  genius  only  has  the  art  to  do,  is  becoming 
a  weariness  in  modern  descriptive  writing.  It  reminds 
one  of  the  Mrs.  Jarley  expedient  of  dressing  the  waxen 
effigies  of  murderers  in  the  very  clothes  they  wore  when 
they  did  the  deed,  or  with  the  real  halter  round  their 
necks  wherewith  they  expiated  it.  It  is  probably  very- 
effective  with  the  torpid  sensibilities  of  the  class  who 
look  upon  wax  figures  as  works  of  art.  True  imagina 
tive  power  works  with  other  material.  Lady  Macbeth 
striving  to  wash  away  from  her  hands  the  damned  spot 
that  is  all  the  more  there  to  the  mind  of  the  spectator 
because  it  is  not  there  at  all,  is  a  type  of  the  methods  it 
employs  and  the  intensity  of  their  action. 

Having  discharged  my  duty  in  regard  to  Mr.  Masson's 

faults  of  manner,  which  I  should  not  have  dwelt  on  so 

long  had  they  not  greatly  marred  a  real  enjoyment  in  the 

reading,  and  were  they  not  the  ear-mark  of  a  school  which 

12 


266  MILTON. 

has  become  unhappily  numerous,  I  turn  to  a  consider 
ation  of  his  work  as  a  whole.  I  think  he  made  a  mis 
take  in  his  very  plan,  or  else  was  guilty  of  a  misnomer 
in  his  title.  His  book  is  not  so  much  a  life  of  Milton 
as  a  collection  of  materials  out  of  which  a  careful  reader 
may  sift  the  main  facts  of  the  poet's  biography.  His 
passion  for  minute  detail  is  only  to  be  equalled  by  his 
diffuseness  on  points  mainly  if  not  altogether  irrelevant. 
He  gives  us  a  Survey  of  British  Literature,  occupying 
one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  pages  of  his  first  volume, 
written  in  the  main  with  good  judgment,  and  giving  the 
average  critical  opinion  upon  nearly  every  writer,  great 
and  small,  who  was  in  any  sense  a  contemporary  of  Mil 
ton.  I  have  no  doubt  all  this  would  be  serviceable  and 
interesting  to  Mr.  Masson's  classes  in  Edinburgh  Univer 
sity,  and  they  may  well  be  congratulated  on  having  so 
competent  a  teacher ;  but  what  it  has  to  do  with  Milton, 
unless  in  the  case  of  such  authors  as  may  be  shown  to 
have  influenced  his  style  or  turn  of  thought,  one  does  not 
clearly  see.  Most  readers  of  a  life  of  Milton  may  be  pre 
sumed  to  have  some  knowledge  of  the  general  literary 
history  of  the  time,  or  at  any  rate  to  have  the  means  of 
acquiring  it,  and  Milton's  manner  (his  style  was  his  own) 
was  very  little  affected  by  any  of  the  English  poets,  with 
the  single  exception,  in  his  earlier  poems,  of  George 
Wither.  Mr.  Masson  also  has  something  to  say  about 
everybody,  from  Wentworth  to  the  obscurest  Brownist 
fanatic  who  was  so  much  as  heard  of  in  England  during 
Milton's  lifetime.  If  this  theory  of  a  biographer's  duty 
should  hold,  our  grandchildren  may  expect  to  see  "A  Life 
of  Thackeray,  or  who  was  who  in  England,  France,  and 
Germany  during  the  first  Half  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen 
tury."  These  digressions  of  Mr.  Masson's  from  what 
should  have  been  his  main  topic  (he  always  seems  some 
how  to  be  "completing  his  tendency  towards  the  sub- 


MILTON.  267 

tirbs  "  of  his  subject),  give  him  an  uneasy  feeling  that  he 
must  get  Milton  in  somehow  or  other  at  intervals,  if  it 
were  only  to  remind  the  reader  that  he  has  a  certain 
connection  with  the  book.  He  is  eager  even  to  discuss 
a  mere  hypothesis,  though  an  untenable  one,  if  it  will 
only  increase  the  number  of  pages  devoted  specially  to 
Milton,  and  thus  lessen  the  apparent  disproportion  be 
tween  the  historical  and  the  biographical  matter.  Mil 
ton  tells  us  that  his  morning  wont  had  been  "  to  read 
good  authors,  or  cause  them  to  be  read,  till  the  atten 
tion  be  weary,  or  memory  have  his  full  fraught ;  then 
with  useful  and  generous  labors  preserving  the  body's 
health  and  hardiness,  to  render  lightsome,  clear,  and 
not  lumpish  obedience  to  the  mind,  to  the  cause  of 
religion  and  our  country's  liberty  when  it  shall  require 
firm  hearts  in  sound  bodies  to  stand  and  cover  their 
stations  rather  than  see  the  ruin  of  our  Protestant 
ism  and  the  enforcement  of  a  slavish  life."  Mr.  Mas- 
son  snatches  at  the  hint :  "  This  is  interesting,"  he 
says ;  "  Milton,  it  seems,,  has  for  some  time  been  practis 
ing  drill !  The  City  Artillery  Ground  was  near 

Did  Milton  among  others  make  a  habit  of  going  there  of 
mornings  1  Of  this  more  hereafter."  When  Mr.  Masson 
returns  to  the  subject  he  speaks  of  Milton's  "  all  but 
positive  statement  ....  that  in  the  spring  of  1642,  or 
a  few  months  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  "War, 
he  was  in  the  habit  of  spending  a  part  of  each  day  in 
military  exercise  somewhere  not  far  from  his  house  in 
Alder scjate  Street."  What  he  puts  by  way  of  query  on 
page  402  has  become  downright  certainty  seventy-nine 
pages  further  on.  The  passage  from  Milton's  tract  makes 
no  "  statement "  of  the  kind  it  pleases  Mr.  Masson  to 
assume.  It  is  merely  a  Miltonian  way  of  saying  that  he 
took  regular  exercise,  because  he  believed  that  moral  no 
less  than  physical  courage  demanded  a  sound  body.  And 


268  MILTON. 

what  proof  does  Mr.  Masson  bring  to  confirm  his  theory  ? 

Nothing  more  nor  less  than  two  or  three  passages  in 

"  Paradise  Lost,"  of  which  I  shall  quote  only  so  much  as 

is  essential  to  his  argument :  — 

"  And  now 

Advanced  in  view  they  stand,  a  horrid  front 
Of  dreadful  length  and  dazzling  arms,  in  guise 
Of  warriors  old  with  ordered  spear  and  shield, 
Awaiting  what  command  their  mighty  chief 
Had  to  impose."  * 

Mr.  Masson  assures  us  that  "  there  are  touches  in  this 
description  (as,  for  example,  the  ordering  of  arms  at 
the  moment  of  halt,  and  without  word  of  command)  too 
exact  and  technical  to  have  occurred  to  a  mere  civilian. 
Again,  at  the  same  review  .... 

'  He  now  prepared 

To  speak  ;  whereat  their  doubled  ranks  they  bend 
From  wing  to  wing,  and  half  enclose  him  round 
With  all  his  peers  ;  attention  held  them  mute.'  f 

To  the  present  day  this  is  the  very  process,  or  one  of 
the  processes,  when  a  commander  wishes  to  address  his 
men.  They  wheel  inward  and  stand  at  '  attention.'  " 
But  his  main  argument  is  the  phrase  "ported  spears," 
in  Book  Fourth,  on  which  he  has  an  interesting  and 
valuable  comment.  He  argues  the  matter  through  a 
dozen  pages  or  more,  seeking  to  prove  that  Milton  must 
have  had  some  practical  experience  of  military  drill.  I 
confess  a  very  grave  doubt  whether  "attention"  and 
"  ordered  "  in  the  passages  cited  have  any  other  than 
their  ordinary  meaning,  and  Milton  could  never  have 
looked  on  at  the  pike-exercise  without  learning  what 
"ported"  meant.  But,  be  this  as  it  may,  I  will  ven 
ture  to  assert  that  there  was  not  a  boy  in  New  England, 
forty  years  ago,  who  did  not  know  more  of  the  manual 
than  is  implied  in  Milton's  use  of  these  terms.  Mr. 

*  Book  I.  562-567.  t  IWd.  615-618. 


MILTON.  269 

Masson's  object  in  proving  Milton  to  have  been  a  profi 
cient  in  these  martial  exercises  is  to  increase  our  wonder 
at  his  not  entering  the  army.  "  If  there  was  any  man 
in  England  of  whom  one  might  surely  have  expected 
that  he  would  be  in  arms  among  the  Parliamentarians," 
he  says,  "  that  man  was  Milton."  Milton  may  have  had 
many  an  impulse  to  turn  soldier,  as  all  men  must  in  such 
times,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  he  ever  seriously  in 
tended  it.  Nor  is  it  any  matter  of  reproach  that  he  did 
not.  It  is  plain,  from  his  works,  that  he  believed  him 
self  very  early  set  apart  and  consecrated  for  tasks  of 
a  very  different  kind,  for  services  demanding  as  much 
self-sacrifice  and  of  more  enduring  result.  I  have  no 
manner  of  doubt  that  he,  like  Dante,  believed  himself 
divinely  inspired  with  what  he  had  to  utter,  and,  if  so, 
why  not  also  divinely  guided  in  what  he  should  do  or 
leave  undone  1  Milton  wielded  in  the  cause  he  loved  a 
weapon  far  more  effective  than  a  sword. 

It  is  a  necessary  result  of  Mr.  Masson's  method,  that 
a  great  deal  of  space  is  devoted  to  what  might  have 
befallen  his  hero  and  what  he  might  have  seen.  This 
leaves  a  broad  margin  indeed  for  the  insertion  of  purely 
hypothetical  incidents.  Nay,  so  desperately  addicted  is 
he  to  what  he  deems  the  vivid  style  of  writing,  that  he 
even  goes  out  of  his  way  to  imagine  what  might  have 
happened  to  anybody  living  at  the  same  time  with  Mil 
ton.  Having  told  us  fairly  enough  how  Shakespeare,  on 
his  last  visit  to  London,  perhaps  saw  Milton  "  a  fair 
child  of  six  playing  at  his  father's  door,"  he  must  needs 
conjure  up  an  imaginary  supper  at  the  Mermaid.  "  Ah! 
what  an  evening  ....  was  that ;  and  how  Ben  and 
Shakespeare  le-tongued  each  other,  while  the  others 
listened  and  wondered ;  and  how,  when  the  company 
dispersed,  the  sleeping  street  heard  their  departing  foot 
steps,  and  the  stars  shone  down  on  the  old  roofs."  Cer- 


270  MILTON. 

tainly,  if  we  may  believe  the  old  song,  the  stars  "  had 
nothing  else  to  do,"  though  their  chance  of  shining  in 
the  middle  of  a  London  November  may  perhaps  be  reck 
oned  very  doubtful.  An  author  should  consider  how 
largely  the  art  of  writing  consists  in  knowing  what  to 
leave  in  the  inkstand. 

Mr.  Masson's  volumes  contain  a  great  deal  of  very  val 
uable  matter,  whatever  one  may  think  of  its  bearing  upon 
the  life  of  Milton.  The  chapters  devoted  to  Scottish  affairs 
are  particularly  interesting  to  a  student  of  the  Great 
Rebellion,  its  causes  and  concomitants.  His  analyses  of 
the  two  armies,  of  the  Parliament,  and  the  Westminster 
Assembly,  are  sensible  additions  to  our  knowledge.  A 
too  painful  thoroughness,  indeed,  is  the  criticism  we 
should  make  on  his  work  as  a  biography.  Even  as  a  his 
tory,  the  reader  might  complain  that  it  confuses  by  the 
multiplicity  of  its  details,  while  it  wearies  by  want  of  con 
tinuity.  Mr.  Masson  lacks  the  skill  of  an  accomplished 
story-teller.  A  fact  is  to  him  a  fact,  never  mind  how 
unessential,  and  he  misses  the  breadth  of  truth  in  his 
devotion  to  accuracy.  The  very  order  of  his  title-page, 
"The  Life  of  Milton,  narrated  in  Connection  with  the  Po 
litical,  Ecclesiastical,  and  Literary  History  of  his  Time," 
shows,  it  should  seem,  a  misconception  of  the  true  na 
ture  of  his  subject.  Milton's  chief  importance,  it  might 
be  fairly  said  his  only  importance,  is  a  literary  one. 
His  place  is  fixed  as  the  most  classical  of  our  poets. 

Neither  in  politics,  theology,  nor  social  ethics,  did 
Milton  leave  any  distinguishable  trace  on  the  thought  of 
his  time  or  in  the  history  of  opinion.  In  both  these  lines 
of  his  activity  circumstances  forced  upon  him  the  posi 
tion  of  a  controversialist  whose  aims  and  results  are 
by  the  necessity  of  the  case  desultory  and  ephemeral. 
Hooker  before  him  and  Hobbes  after  him  had  a  far  firmer 
grasp  of  fundamental  principles  than  he.  His  studies  in 


MILTON.  271 

these  matters  were  perfunctory  and  occasional,  and  his 
opinions  were  heated  to  the  temper  of  the  times  and 
shaped  to  the  instant  exigencies  of  the  forum,  sometimes 
to  his  own  convenience  at  the  moment,  instead  of  being 
the  slow  result  of  a  delibei'ate  judgment  enlightened 
by  intellectual  and  above  all  historical  sympathy  with 
his  subject.  His  interest  was  rather  in  the  occasion 
than  the  matter  of  the  controversy.  No  aphorisms  of 
political  science  are  to  be  gleaned  from  his  writings 
as  from  those  of  Burke.  His  intense  personality  could 
never  so  far  dissociate  itself  from  the  question  at  issue 
as  to  see  it  in  its  larger  scope  and  more  universal  rela 
tions.  He  was  essentially  a  doctrinaire,  ready  to  sacri 
fice  everything  to  what  at  the  moment  seemed  the 
abstract  truth,  and  with  no  regard  to  historical  ante 
cedents  and  consequences,  provided  those  of  scholastic 
logic  were  carefully  observed.  He  has  no  respect  for 
usage  or  tradition  except  when  they  count  in  his  favor, 
and  sees  no  virtue  in  that  power  of  the  past  over  the 
minds  and  conduct  of  men  which  alone  insures  the  con 
tinuity  of  national  growth  and  is  the  great  safeguard 
of  order  and  progress.  The  life  of  a  nation  was  of  less 
importance  to  him  than  that  it  should  be  .conformed  to 
certain  principles  of  belief  and  conduct.  Burke  could 
distil  political  wisdom  out  of  history  because  he  had  a 
profound  consciousness  of  the  soul  that  underlies,  and 
outlives  events,  and  of  the  national  character  that  gives 
them  meaning  and  coherence.  Accordingly  his  words 
are  still  living  and  operative,  while  Milton's  pamphlets 
are  strictly  occasional  and  no  longer  interesting  except 
as  they  illustrate  him.  In  the  Latin  ones  especially 
there  is  an  odd  mixture  of  the  pedagogue  and  the  public 
orator.  His  training,  so  far  as  it  was  thorough,  so  far, 
indeed,  as  it  may  be  called  optional,  was  purely  poetical 
and  artistic.  A  true  Attic  bee,  he  made  boot  on  every 
lip  where  there  was  a  trace  of  truly  classic  honey. 


272  MILTON. 

Milton,  indeed,  could  hardly  have  been  a  match  for 
some  of  his  antagonists  in  theological  and  ecclesiastical 
learning.  But  he  brought  into  the  contest  a  white  heat 
of  personal  conviction  that  counted  for  much.  His  self- 
consciousness,  always  active,  identified  him  with  the 
cause  he  undertook.  "  I  conceived  myself  to  be  now 
not  as  mine  own  person,  but  as  a  member  incorporate 
into  that  truth  whereof  I  was  persuaded  and  whereof 
I  had  declared  myself  openly  to  be  the  partaker."  * 
Accordingly  it  does  not  so  much  seem  that  he  is  the 
advocate  of  Puritanism,  Freedom  of  Conscience,  or  the 
People  of  England,  as  that  all  these  are  lie,  and  that  he 
is  speaking  for  himself.  He  was  not  nice  in  the  choice 
of  his  missiles,  and  too  often  borrows  a  dirty  lump  from 
the  dunghill  of  Luther ;  but  now  and  then  the  gnarled 
sticks  of  controversy  turn  to  golden  arrows  of  Phoebus 
in  his  trembling  hands,  singing  as  they  fly  and  carrying 
their  messages  of  doom  in  music.  Then,  truly,  in  his 
prose  as  in  his  verse,  his  is  the  large  utterance  of  the 
early  gods,  and  there  is  that  in  him  which  tramples  all 
learning  under  his  victorious  feet.  From  the  first  he 
looked  upon  himself  as  a  man  dedicated  and  set  apart. 
He  had  that  sublime  persuasion  of  a  divine  mission  which 
sometimes  lifts  his  speech  from  personal  to  cosmopoli 
tan  significance  ;  his  genius  unmistakably  asserts  itself 
from  time  to  time,  calling  down  fire  from  heaven  to  kin 
dle  the  sacrifice  of  irksome  private  duty,  and  turning  the 
hearthstone  of  an  obscure  man  into  an  altar  for  the  wor 
ship  of  mankind.  Plainly  enough  here  was  a  man  who 
had  received  something  other  than  Episcopal  ordination. 
Mysterious  and  awful  powers  had  laid  their  unimagina 
ble  hands  on  that  fair  head  and  devoted  it  to  a  nobler 
service.  Yet  it  must  be  confessed  that,  with  the  single 
exception  of  the  "  Areopagitica,"  Milton's  tracts  are 

*  Apology  for  Smectymiraus. 


MILTON.  273 

•wearisome  reading,  and  going  through  them  is  like  a 
long  sea-voyage  whose  monotony  is  more  than  compen 
sated  for  the  moment  by  a  stripe  of  phosphorescence 
heaping  before  you  in  a  drift  of  star-sown  snow,  coiling 
away  behind  in  winking  disks  of  silver,  as  if  the  con 
scious  element  were  giving  out  all  the  moonlight  it 
had  garnered  in  its  loyal  depths  since  first  it  gazed 
upon  its  pallid  regent.  Which,  being  interpreted, 
means  that  his  prose  is  of  value  because  it  is  Milton's, 
because  it  sometimes  exhibits  in  an  inferior  degree 
the  qualities  of  his  verse,  and  not  for  its  power  of 
thought,  of  reasoning,  or  of  statement.  It  is  valuable, 
where  it  is  best,  for  its  inspiring  quality,  like  the  ferven 
cies  of  a  Hebrew  prophet.  The  English  translation  of 
the  Bible  had  to  a  very  great  degree  Judaized,  not  the 
English  mind,  but  the  Puritan  temper.  Those  fierce  en 
thusiasts  could  more  easily  find  elbow-room  for  their 
consciences  in  an  ideal  Israel  than  in  a  practical  Eng 
land.  It  was  convenient  to  see  Amalek  or  Philistia  in 
the  men  who  met  them  in  the  field,  and  one  unintelligi 
ble  horn  or  other  of  the  Beast  in  their  theological  oppo 
nents.  The  spiritual  provincialism  of  the  Jewish  race 
found  something  congenial  in  the  English  mind.  Their 
national  egotism  quiutessentialized  in  the  prophets  was 
especially  sympathetic  with  the  personal  egotism  of  Mil 
ton.  It  was  only  as  an  inspired  and  irresponsible  person 
that  he  could  live  on  decent  terms  with  his  own  self- 
confident  individuality.  There  is  an  intolerant  egotism 
which  identifiers  itself  with  omnipotence,*  and  whose 
sublimity  is.  its  apology  ;  there  is  an  intolerable  egotism 
which  subordinates  the  sun  to  the  watch  in  its  own  fob. 
Milton's  was  of  the  former  kind,  and  accordingly  the 

*  "  For  him  I  was  not  sent,  nor  yet  to  free 

That  people,  victor  once,  now  vile  and  base, 
Deservedly  made  vassal."-  P.  R.  IV.  131-133. 
12*  K 


274  MILTON. 

finest  passages  in  his  prose  and  not  the  least  fine  in  his 
verse  are  autobiographic,  and  this  is  the  more  striking 
that  they  are  often  unconsciously  so.  Those  fallen  an 
gels  in  utter  ruin  and  combustion  hurled,  are  also  cav 
aliers  fighting  against  the  Good  Old  Cause ;  Philistia 
is  the  Restoration,  and  what  Samson  did,  that  Milton 
would  have  done  if  he  could. 

The  "  Areopagitica"  might  seem  an  exception,  but  that 
also  is  a  plea  rather  than  an  argument,  and  his  interest 
in  the  question  is  not  one  of  abstract  principle,  but  of 
personal  relation  to  himself.  He  was  far  more  rheto 
rician  than  thinker.  The  sonorous  amplitude  of  his 
style  was  better  fitted  to  persuade  the  feelings  than 
to  convince  the  reason.  The  only  passages  from  his 
prose  that  may  be  said  to  have  survived  are  emotional, 
not  argumentative,  or  they  have  lived  in  virtue  of 
their  figurative  beauty,  not  their  weight  of  thought. 
Milton's  power  lay  in  dilation.  Touched  by  him,  the 
simplest  image,  the  most  obvious  thought, 

"  Dilated  stood 
Like  Teneriffe  or  Atlas  .... 
....  nor  wanted  in  his  grasp 
What  seemed  both  spear  and  shield." 

But  the  thin  stiletto  of  Macchiavelli  is  a  more  effective 
weapon  than  these  fantastic  arms  of  his.  He  had  not 
the  secret  of  compression  that  properly  belongs  to  the 
political  thinker,  on  whom,  as  Hazlitt  said  of  himself, 
"  nothing  but  abstract  ideas-  makes  any  impression." 
Almost  every  aphoristic  phrase  that  he  has  made  current 
is  borrowed  from  some  one  of  the  classics,  like  his  famous 

"  License  they  mean  when  they  cry  liberty," 

from  Tacitus.  This  is  no  reproach  to  him  so  far  as  his 
true  function,  that  of  poet,  is  concerned.  It  is  his  pe 
culiar  glory  that  literature  was  with  him  so  much  an 


MILTON.  275 

art,  an  end  and  not  a  means.  Of  his  political  work  he 
has  himself  told  us,  "  I  should  not  choose  this  manner 
of  writing,  wherein,  knowing  myself  inferior  to  myself 
(led  by  the  genial  power  of  nature  to  another  task),  I 
have  the  use,  as  I  may  account,  but  of  my  left  hand." 

Mr.  Massbn  has  given  an  excellent  analysis  of  these 
writings,  selecting  with  great  judgment  the  salient  pas 
sages,  which  have  an  air  of  blank-verse  thinly  disguised 
as  prose,  like  some  of  the  corrupted  passages  of  Shake 
speare.  We  are  particularly  thankful  to  him  for  his  ex 
tracts  from  the  pamphlets  written  against  Milton,  espe 
cially  for  such  as  contain  criticisms  on  his  style.  It  is 
not  a  little  interesting  to  see  the  most  statelyof  poets 
reproached  for  his  use  of  vulgarisms  and  low  words.  We 
seem  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  schooling  of  his  "choiceful 
sense"  to  that  nicety  which  could  not  be  content  till  it 
had  made  his  native  tongue  "search  all  her  coffers  round." 
One  cannot  help  thinking  also  that  his  practice  in  prose, 
especially  in  the  long  involutions  of  Latin  periods,  helped 
him  to  give  that  variety  of  pause  and  that  majestic  har 
mony  to  his  blank-verse  which  have  made  it  so  unap 
proachably  his  own.  Landor,  who,  like  Milton,  seems  to 
have  thought  in  Latin,  has  caught  somewhat  more  than 
others  of  the  dignity  of  his  gait,  but  without  his  length 
of  stride.  Wordsworth,  at  his  finest,  has  perhaps  ap 
proached  it,  but  with  how  long  an  interval !  Bryant  has 
not  seldom  attained  to  its  serene  equanimity,  but  never 
emulates  its  pomp.  Keats  has  caught  something  of  its 
large  utterance,  but  altogether  fails  of  its  nervous  sever 
ity  of  phrase.  Cowper's  muse  (that  moved  with  such 
graceful  ease  in  slippers)  becomes  stiff  when  (in  his 
translation  of  Homer)  she  buckles  on  her  feet  the  cothur 
nus  of  Milton.  Thomson  grows  tumid  wherever  he  as 
says  the  grandiosity  of  his  model.  It  is  instructive  to 
get  any  glimpse  of  the  slow  processes  by  which  Milton 


276  MILTON. 

arrived  at  that  classicism  which  sets  him  apart  from,  if 
not  above,  all  our  other  poets. 

In  gathering  up  the  impressions  made  upon  us  by 
Mr.  Masson's  work  as  a  whole,  we  are  inclined  rather  to 
regret  his  copiousness  for  his  own  sake  than  for  ours. 
The  several  parts,  though  disproportionate,  are  valuable, 
his  research  has  been  conscientious,  and  he  has  given 
xis  better  means  of  understanding  Milton's  time  than  we 
possessed  before.  But  how  is  it  about  Milton  himself? 
Here  was  a  chance,  it  seems  to  me,  for  a  fine  bit  of  por 
trait-painting.  There  is  hardly  a  more  stately  figure 
in  literary  history  than  Milton's,  no  life  in  some  of  its 
aspects  more  tragical,  except  Dante's.  In  both  these 
great  poets,  more  than  in  any  others,  the  character  of 
the  men  makes  part  of  the  singular  impressiveness  of 
what  they  wrote  and  of  its  vitality  with  after  times. 
In  them  the  man  somehow  overtops  the  author.  The 
works  of  both  are  full  of  autobiographical  confidences. 
Like  Dante,  Milton  was  forced  to  become  a  party  by 
himself.  He  stands  out  in  marked  and  solitary  indi 
viduality,  apart  from  the  great  movement  of  the  Civil 
War,  apart  from  the  supine  acquiescence  of  the  Restora 
tion,  a  self-opinionated,  unforgiving,  and  unforgetting 
man.  Very  much  alive  he  certainly  was  in  his  day. 
Has  Mr.  Masson  made  him  alive  to  us  again]  I  fear 
not.  At  the  same  time,  while  we  cannot  praise  either 
the  style  or  the  method  of  Mr.  Masson's  work,  we  can 
not  refuse  to  be  grateful  for  it.  It  is  not  so  much  a 
book  for  the  ordinary  reader  of  biography  as  for  the 
student,  and  will  be  more  likely  to  find  its  place  on  the 
library-shelf  than  the  centre-table.  It  does  not  in  any 
sense  belong  to  light  literature,  but  demands  all  the 
muscle  of  the  trained  and  vigorous  reader.  "  Truly,  in 
respect  of  itself,  it  is  a  good  life ;  but  in  respect  that  it 
is  Milton's  life  it  is  naught." 


MILTON.  277 

Mr.  Masson's  intimacy  with  the  facts  and  dates  of 
Milton's  career  renders  him  peculiarly  fit  in  some  respects 
to  undertake  an  edition  of  the  poetical  works.  His  edi 
tion,  accordingly,  has  distinguished  merits.  The  intro 
ductions  to  the  several  poems  are  excellent  and  leave 
scarcely  anything  to  be  desired.  The  general  Introduc 
tion,  on  the  other  hand,  contains  a  great  deal  that  might 
well  have  been  omitted,  and  not  a  little  that  is  posi 
tively  erroneous.  Mr.  Masson's  discussions  of  Milton's 
English  seem  often  to  be  those  of  a  Scotsman  to  whom 
English  is  in  some  sort  a  foreign  tongue.  It  is  almost 
wholly  inconclusive,  because  confined  to  the  Miltonic 
verse,  while  the  basis  of  any  altogether  satisfactory  study 
should  surely  be  the  Miltonic  prose ;  nay,  should  include 
all  the  poetry  and  prose  of  his  own  age  and  of  that  im 
mediately  preceding  it.  The  uses  to  which  Mr.  Masson 
has  put  the  concordance  to  Milton's  poems  tempt  one 
sometimes  to  class  him  with  those  whom  the  poet  him 
self  taxed  with  being  "  the  mousehunts  and  ferrets  of  an 
index."  For  example,  what  profits  a  discussion  of  Mil 
ton's  a.7ra£  Aeyo/xera,  a  matter  in  which  accident  is  far 
more  influential  than  choice  1  *  What  sensible  addition 
is  made  to  our  stock  of  knowledge  by  learning  that  "  the 
word  woman  does  not  occur  in  any  form  in  Milton's 
poetry  before  '  Paradise  Lost,'"  and  that  it  is  "exactly 
so  with  the  word  female"  1  Is  it  any  way  remarkable 
that  such  words  as  Adam,  God,  Heaven,  Hell,  Paradise, 
Sin,  Satan,  and  Serpent  should  occur  "  very  frequently  " 
in  "  Paradise  Lost  "  1  Would  it  not  rather  have  been 
surprising  that  they  should  not  ]  Such  trifles  at  best 
come  under  the  head  of  what  old  Warner  would  have 
called  cumber-minds.  It  is  time  to  protest  against  this 

*  If  things  are  to  be  scanned  so  micrologically,  what  weighty  infer 
ences  might  not  be  drawn  from  Mr.   Masson's  invariably  printing 


278  MILTON. 

minute  style  of  editing  and  commenting  great  poets. 
Gulliver's  microscopic  eye  saw  on  the  fair  skins  of  the 
Brobdignagian  maids  of  honor  "  a  mole  here  and  there 
as  broad  as  a  trencher,"  and  we  shrink  from  a  cup  of 
the  purest  Hippocrene  after  the  critic's  solar  microscope 
has  betrayed  to  us  the  grammatical,  syntactical,  and, 
above  all,  hypothetical  monsters  that  sprawl  in  every 
drop  of  it.  When  a  poet  has  been  so  much  edited  as 
Milton,  the  temptation  of  whosoever  undertakes  a  new 
edition  to  see  what  is  not  to  be  seen  becomes  great  in 
proportion  as  he  finds  how  little  there  is  that  has  not 
been  seen  before. 

Mr.  Masson  is  quite  right  in  choosing  to  modernize 
the  spelling  of  Milton,  for  surely  the  reading  of  our 
classics  should  be  made  as  little  difficult  as  possible,  and 
he  is  right  also  in  making  an  exception  of  such  abnormal 
forms  as  the  poet  may  fairly  be  supposed  to  have  chosen 
for  melodic  reasons.  His  exhaustive  discussion  of  the 
spelling  of  the  original  editions  seems,  however,  to  be 
the  less  called-for  as  he  himself  appears  to  admit  that  the 
compositor,  not  the  author,  was  supreme  in  these  mat 
ters,  and  that  in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  to 
the  thousand  Milton  had  no  system,  but  spelt  by  imme 
diate  inspiration.  Yet  Mr.  Masson  fills  nearly  four  pages 
with  an  analysis  of  the  vowel  sounds,  in  which,  as  if  to 
demonstrate  the  futility  of  such  attempts  so  long  as 
men's  ears  differ,  he  tells  us  that  the  short  a  sound  is 
the  same  in  man  and  Darby,  the  short  o  sound  in  God 
and  does,  and  what  he  calls  the  long  o  sound  in  broad 
and  wrath.  Speaking  of  the  apostrophe,  Mr.  Masson 
tells  us  that  "it  is  sometimes  inserted,  not  as  a  posses 
sive  mark  at  all,  but  merely  as  a  plural  mark  :  hero's  for 
heroes,  myrtle's  for  myrtles,  G argons  and  Hydra's,  etc." 
Now,  in  books  printed  about  the  time  of  Milton's  the 
apostrophe  was  put  in  almost  at  random,  and  in  all  the 


MILTON.  279 

cases  cited  is  a  misprint,  except  in  the  first,  where  it 
serves  to  indicate  that  the  pronunciation  was  not  heroes 
as  it  had  formerly  been.*  In  the  "  possessive  singular 
of  nouns  already  ending  in  s  "  Mr.  Masson  tells  us,  "  Mil 
ton's  general  practice  is  not  to  double  the  s  ;  thus,  Nereus 
wrinkled  look,  Glaucus  spell.  The  necessities  of  metre 
would  naturally  constrain  to  such  forms.  In  a  possessive 
followed  by  the  word  sake  or  the  word  side,  dislike  to 
[of]  the  double  sibilant  makes  us  sometimes  drop  the 
inflection.  In  addition  to  'for  righteousness'  sake '  such 
phrases  as  'for  thy  name  sake '  and  'for  mercy  sake,'  are 
allowed  to  pass ;  bedside  is  normal  and  riverside  nearly 
so."  The  necessities  of  metre  need  not  be  taken  into 
account  with  a  poet  like  Milton,  who  never  was  fairly 
in  his  element  till  he  got  off  the  soundings  of  prose  and 
felt  the  long  swell  of  his  verse  under  him  like  a  steed 
that  knows  his  rider.  But  does  the  dislike  of  the  double 
sibilant  account  for  the  dropping  of  the  s  in  these  cases  1 
Is  it  not  far  rather  the  presence  of  the  s  already  in  the 
sound  satisfying  an  ear  accustomed  to  the  English  slov 
enliness  in  the  pronunciation  of  double  consonants'?  It 
was  this  which  led  to  such  forms  as  conscience  sake  and 
on  justice  side,  and  which  beguiled  Ben  Jonson  and 
Dry  den  into  thinking,  the  one  that  noise  and  the  other 
that  corps  was  a  plural.t  What  does  Mr.  Massou  say 

*  "That  you  may  tell  heroes,  when  you  come 
To  banquet  with  your  wife." 

Chapman's  Odyssey,  VIII.  336,  337. 
In  the  facsimile  of  the  sonnet  to  Fairfax  I  find 

"  Thy  firm  unshak'n  vertue  ever  brings," 

which  shows  how  much  faith  we  need  give  to  the  apostrophe. 

t  Mr.  Masson  might  have  cited  a  good  example  of  this  from  Drum- 
mond,  whom  (as  a  Scotsman)  he  is  fond  of  quoting  for  an  authority  in 
English,  — 

"Sleep,  Silence'  child,  sweet  father  of  soft  rest." 

The  survival  of  Horse  for  horses  is  another  example.  So  by  a  reverse 
process  pult  and  sha.y  have  been  vulgarly  deduced  from  the  supposed 
plurals  pulse  and  chaise. 


280  MILTON. 

to  hillside,  Bankside,  seaside,  Cheapside,  spindleside, 
spearside,  gospelside  (of  a  church),  nightside,  countryside, 
wayside,  brookside,  and  I  kuow  not  how  many  more  ]  Is 
the  first  half  of  these  words  a  possessive  ]  Or  is  it  not 
rather  a  noun  impressed  into  the  service  as  an  adjective? 
How  do  such  words  differ  from  hilltop,  townend,  candle 
light,  rushlight,  cityman,  and  the  like,  where  no  double 
«  can  be  ma,de  the  scapegoat  1  Certainly  Milton  would 
not  have  avoided  them  for  their  sibilancy,  he  who  wrote 

"  And  airy  tongues  that  syllable  men's  names 
On  sands  and  shores  and  desert  wildernesses," 

"So  in  his  seed  all  nations  shall  be  blest," 
"And  seat  of  Salmanasser  whose  success," 

verses  that  hiss  like  Medusa's  head  in  wrath,  and  who 
was,  I  think,  fonder  of  the  sound  than  any  other  of  our 
poets.  Indeed,  in  compounds  of  the  kind  we  always 
make  a  distinction  wholly  independent  of  the  doubled  s. 
Nobody  would  boggle  at  mountainside;  no  one  would 
dream  of  saying  on  the  fatherside  or  motherside. 

Mr.  Masson  speaks  of  "  the  Miltonic  forms  vanquisht, 
markt,  lookt,  etc."  Surely  he  does  not  mean  to  imply 
that  these  are  peculiar  to  Milton  1  Chapman  used  them 
before  Milton  was  born,  and  pressed  them  farther,  as  in 
nakt  and  saft  for  naked  and  saved.  He  often  prefers 
the  contracted  form  in  his  prose  also,  showing  that  the 
full  form  of  the  past  participle  in  ed  was  passing  out  of 
fashion,  though  available  in  verse.*  Indeed,  I  venture 

*  Chapman's  spelling  is  presumably  his  own.  At  least  he  looked 
after  his  printed  texts.  I  have  two  copies  of  his  "Byron's  Conspir 
acy,"  both  dated  1608,  but  one  evidently  printed  later  than  the  other, 
for  it  shows  corrections.  The  more  soleinn  ending  in  ed  was  probably 
kept  alive  by  the  reading  of  the  Bible  in  churches.  Though  now 
dropped  by  the  -clergy,  it  is  essential  to  the  right  hearing  of  the  more 
metrical  passages  in  the  Old  Testament,  which  are  finer  and  more  sci 
entific  than  anything  in  the  language,  unless  it  be  some  parts  of  "  Sam 
son  Agonistes."  I  remember  an  old  gentleman  who  always  used  the 


MILTON.  281 

to  affirm  that  there  is  not  a  single  variety  of  spelling 
or  accent  to  be  found  in  Milton  which  is  without  exam 
ple  in  his  predecessors  or  contemporaries.  Even  highth, 
which  is  thought  peculiarly  Miltonic,  is  common  (in 
Hakluyt,  for  example),  and  still  often  heard  in  New 
England.  Mr.  Masson  gives  an  odd  reason  for  Milton's 
preference  of  it  "  as  indicating  more  correctly  the  for 
mation  of  the  word  by  the  addition  of  the  suffix  th  to 
the  adjective  high."  Is  an  adjective,  then,  at  the  base 
of  groivth,  earth,  birth,  truth,  and  other  words  of  this 
kind  1  Home  Tooke  made  a  better  guess  'than  this. 
If  Mr.  Masson  be  right  in  supposing  that  a  peculiar 
meaning  is  implied  in  the  spelling  bearth  (Paradise  Lost, 
IX.  624),  which  he  interprets  as  "  collective  produce," 
though  in  the  only  other  instance  where  it  occurs  it  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  birth,  it  should  seem  that  Mil 
ton  had  hit  upon  Home  Tooke's  etymology.  But  it  is 
really  solemn  trifling  to  lay  any  stress  on  the  spelling  of 
the  original  editions,  after  having  admitted,  as  Mr.  Mas- 
son  has  honestly  done,  that  in  all  likelihood  Milton  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  And  yet  he  cannot  refrain.  On 
the  word  voutsafe  he  hangs  nearly  a  page  of  dissertation 
on  the  nicety  of  Milton's  ear.  Mr.  Masson  thinks  that 
Milton  "  must  have  had  a  reason  for  it,"  *  and  finds  that 
reason  in  "  his  dislike  to  [of]  the  sound  ch,  or  to  [of]  that 
sound  combined  with  s His  fine  ear  taught  him 

contracted  form  of  the  participle  in  conversation,  but  always  gave  it 
back  its  embezzled  syllable  in  reading.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  seems  to 
have  preferred  the  more  solemn  form.  At  any  rate  he  lias  the  spelling 
empuzzeled  in  prose. 

*  He  thinks  the  same  of  the  variation  strook  and  struck,  though 
they  were  probably  pronounced  alike.  In  Marlowe's  "  Faustus  "  two 
consecutive  sentences  (in  prose)  begin  with  the  words  "Cursed  be  he 
that  struck."  In  a  note  on  the  passage  Mr.  Dyce  tells  us  that  the  old 
editions  (there  were  three)  have  stroke  an&strooke  in  the  first  instance, 
and  all  agree  on  strucke  in  the  second.  No  inference  can  be  drawn 
from  such  casualties. 


282  MILTON. 

not  only  to  seek  for  musical  effects  and  cadences  at 
large,  but  also  to  be  fastidious  as  to  syllables,  and  to 
avoid  harsh  or  difficult  conjunctions  of  consonants,  ex 
cept  when  there  might  be  a  musical  reason  for  harshness 
or  difficulty.  In  the  management  of  the  letter  s,  the 
frequency  of  which  in  English  is  one  of  the  faults  of  the 
speech,  he  will  be  found,  I  believe,  most  careful  and 
skilful.  More  rarely,  I  think,  than  in  Shakespeare  will 
one  word  ending  in  s  be  found  followed  immediately  in 
Milton  by  another  word  beginning  with  the  same  letter  ; 
or,  if  he  does  occasionally  pen  such  a  phrase  as  MoaUs 
sons,  it  will  be  difficult  to  find  in  him,  I  believe,  such 
a  harsher  example  as  earth's  substance,  of  which  many 
writers  would  think  nothing.  [With  the  index  to  back 
him  Mr.  Masson  could  safely  say  this.]  The  same  deli 
cacy  of  ear  is  even  more  apparent  in  his  management  of 
the  sh  sound.  He  has  it  often,  of  course ;  but  it  may 
be  noted  that  he  rejects  it  in  his  verse  when  he  can. 
He  writes  JBasan  for  Bashan,  Sittim  for  Sldttim,  Silo  for 
Skiloh,  Asdod  for  Ashdod.  Still  more,  however,  does  he 
seem  to  have  been  wary  of  the  compound  sound  ch  as  in 
church.  Of  his  sensitiveness  to  this  sound  in  excess 
there  is  a  curious  proof  in  his  prose  pamphlet  entitled 
'An  Apology  against  a  Pamphlet,  called  A  Modest 
Completion,  etc.,'  where,  having  occasion  to  quote  these 
lines  from  one  of  the  Satires  *  of  his  opponent,  Bishop 

Hall, 

'  Teach  each  hollow  grove  to  sound  his  love, 
Wearying  echo  with  one  changeless  word,' 

he  adds,  ironically,  'And  so  he  well  might,  and  all  his 
auditory  besides,  with  his  teach  each  ! '  "  Generalizations 

*  The  lines  are  not  "  from  one  of  the  Satires,"  and  Milton  made 
them  worse  by  misquoting  and  bringing  love  jinglingly  near  to  grove. 
Hall's  verse  (in  his  Satires)  is  always  vigorous  and  often  harmonious. 
He  long  before  Milton  spoke  of  rhyme  almost  in  the  very  terms  of  the 
preface  to  Paradise  Lost. 


MILTON.  283  ' 

are  always  risky,  but  when  extemporized  from  a  single 
hint  they  are  maliciously  so.  Surely  it  needed  no  great 
sensitiveness  of  ear  to  be  set  on  edge  by  Hall's  echo  of 
teach  each.  Did  Milton  reject  the  h  from  Bashan  and  the 
rest  because  he  disliked  the  sound  of  sk,  or  because  'he 
had  found  it  already  rejected  by  the  Vulgate  and  by 
some  of  the  earlier  translators  of  the  Bible  into  English  ? 
Oddly  enough,  Milton  uses  words  beginning  with  sh 
seven  hundred  and  fifty-four  times  in  his  poetry,  not  to 
speak  of  others  in  which  the  sound  occurs,  as,  for  in 
stance,  those  ending  in  tion.  Hall,  had  he  lived  long 
enough,  might  have  retorted  on  Milton  his  own 

"Manliest,  resolute^,  'breast, 
As  the  magnetick  hardest  iron  draws," 

or  his 

"  What  moves  thy  inquisition  ? 
Know'st  thou  not  that  my  rising  is  thy  fall, 
And  my  promotion  thy  destruction  ? " 

With  the  playful  controversial  wit  of  the  day  he  would 
have  hinted  that  too  much  est-est  is  as  fatal  to  a  blank- 
verse  as  to  a  bishop,  and  that  danger  was  often  incurred 
by  those  who  too  eagerly  shunned  it.  Nay,  he  might 
even  have  found  an  echo  almost  tallying  with  his  own 
in 

"  To  begirt  the  almighty  throne 
Beseeching  or  besieging," 

a  pun  worthy  of  Milton's  worst  prose.  Or  he  might  have 
twitted  him  with  "  a  sequent  king  who  seeks."  As  for  the 
sh  sound,  a  poet  could  hardly  have  found  it  ungracious 
to  his  ear  who  wrote, 

"  Gnashing  for  anguisA  and  despite  and  s/iame, 
or  again, 

"Then  bursting  forth 

v  Afresh  with  conscious  terrors  vex  me  round 

That  rest  or  intermisMon  none  I  find. 
Before  mine  eyes  in  opposition  sits 
Grim  Death,  my  son." 


284  MILTON. 

And  if  Milton  disliked  the  ch  sound,  he  gave  his  ears 
unnecessary  pain  by  verses  such  as  these,  — 

"Straight  coucAes  close  ;  then,  rising,  cAanges  oft 
His  coucAant  watch,  as  one  who  cAose  his  ground  " ; 

still    more    by   such   a   juxtaposition    as    "matchless 
chief."* 

The  truth  is,  that  Milton  was  a  harmonist  rather  than 
a  melodist.  There  are,  no  doubt,  some  exquisite  melo 
dies  (like  the  "  Sabrina  Fair  ")  among  his  earlier  poems, 
as  could  hardly  fail  to  be  the  case  in  an  age  which  pro 
duced  or  trained  the  authors  of  our  best  English  glees, 
as  ravishing  in  their  instinctive  felicity  as  the  songs  of 
our  dramatists,  but  he  also  showed  from  the  first  that 
larger  style  which  was  to  be  his  peculiar  distinction. 
The  strain  heard  in  the  "  Nativity  Ode,"  in  the  "  Solemn 
Music,"  and  in  "  Lycidas,"  is  of  a  higher  mood,  as  regards 
metrical  construction,  than  anything  that  had  thrilled 
the  English  ear  before,  giving  no  uncertain  augury  of 
him  who  was  to  show  what  sonorous  metal  lay  silent  till 
he  touched  the  keys  in  the  epical  organ-pipes  of  our 
various  language,  that  have  never  since  felt  the  strain 
of  such  prevailing  breath.  It  was  in  the  larger  move 
ments  of  metre  that  Milton  was  great  and  original.  I 
have  spoken  elsewhere  of  Spenser's  fondness  for  dila- 

*  Mr.  Masson  goes  so  far  as  to  conceive  it  possible  that  Milton  may 
have  committed  the  vulgarism  of  leaving  a  t  out  of  slep'st,  "for  ease  of 
sound."  Yet  the  poet  could  bear  boast'st  and  —  one  stares  and  gasps 
at  it  —  doaCdst.  There  is,  by  the  way,  a  familiar  passage  in  which 
the  ch  sound  predominates,  not  without  a  touch  of  sh,  in  a  single 
couplet :  — • 

"  Can  any  mortal  mixture  of  earth's  mould 

Breathe  sucft  divine  enchanting  ravishment  ?  " 
So 

"  Blotches  and  blains  must  all  his  flesh  emboss," 
and  perhaps 

"  I  see  his  tents 
Pitched  about  Sechem  " 
might  be  added. 


MILTON.  285 

tation  as  respects  thoughts  and  images.  In  Milton  it 
extends  to  the  language  also,  and  often  to  the  single 
words  of  which  a  period  is  composed.  He  loved  phrases 
of  towering  port,  in  which  every  member  dilated  stands 
like  Teneriffe  or  Atlas.  In  those  poems  and  passages 
that  stamp  him  great,  the  verses  do  not  dance  inter 
weaving  to  soft  Lydian  airs,  but  march  rather  with 
resounding  tread  and  clang  of  martial  music.  It  is 
true  that  he  is  cunning  in  alliterations,  so  scattering 
them  that  they  tell  in  his  orchestra  without  being 
obvious,  but  it  is  in  the  more  scientific  region  of  open- 
voweled  assonances  which  seem  to  proffer  rhyme  and 
yet  withhold  it  (rhyme-wraiths  one  might  call  them), 
that  he  is  an  artist  and  a  master.  He  even  sometimes 
introduces  rhyme  with  misleading  intervals  between 
and  unobviously  in  his  blank-verse  :  — 

"  There  rest,  if  any  rest  can  harbour  there  ; 
And,  reassembling  our  afflicted  powers, 
Consult  how  we  may  henceforth  most  offend 
Our  enemy,  our  own  loss  how  repair, 
How  overcome  this  dire  calamity, 
What  reinforcement  we  may  gain  from  hope, 
If  not,  what  resolution  from  despair."  * 

There  is  one  almost  perfect  quatrain,  — 

"  Before  thy  fellows,  ambitious  to  win 
From  me  some  plume,  that  thy  success  may  show 
Destruction  to  the  rest.     This  pause  between 
(Unanswered  lest  thou  boast)  to  let  thee  know" ; 

and  another  hardly  less  so,  of  a  rhyme  and  an  asso 
nance,  — 

"  If  once  they  hear  that  voice,  their  liveliest  pledge 
Of  hope  in  fears  and  dangers,  heard  so  oft 

*  I  think  Coleridge's  nice  ear  would  have  blamed  the  nearness  of 
enemy  and  calamity  in  this  passage.  Mr.  Masson  leaves  out  the 
comma  after  If  not,  the  pause  of  which  is  needful,  I  think,  to  the 
sense,  and  certainly  to  keep  not  a  little  farther  apart  from  what, 
("teach  each  "  !) 


286  MILTON. 

In  worst  extremes  and  on  the  perilous  edge 
Of  battle  when  it  raged,  in  all  assaults." 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  rhymes  in  the  first 
passage  cited  were  intentional,  and  pel-haps  they  were  so 
in  the  others ;  but  Milton's  ear  has  tolerated  not  a  few 
perfectly  rhyming  couplets,  and  others  in  which  the  as 
sonance  almost  becomes  rhyme,  certainly  a  fault  in  blank- 
verse  :  — 

"From  the  Asian  Kings  (and  Parthian  among  these), 
From  India  and  the  Golden  Chersonese  " ; 

"  That  soon  refreshed  him  wearied,  and  repaired 
What  hunger,  if  aught  hunger,  had  impaired  "  ; 

"  And  will  alike  be  punished,  whether  thou 
Reign  or  reign  not,  though  to  that  gentle  brow  "  ; 

"  Of  pleasure,  but  all  pleasure  to  destroy, 
Save  what  is  in  destroying,  other  joy  "  ; 

"  Shall  all  be  Paradise,  far  happier  place 
Than  this  of  Eden,  and  far  happier  days  " ; 

"  This  my  long  sufferance  and  my  day  of  grace 
They  who  neglect  and  scorn  shall  never  taste  " ; 

"So  far  remote  with  diminution  seen, 
First  in  his  East  the  glorious  lamp  was  seen."  * 

These  examples  (and  others  might  be  adduced)  serve  to 
show  that  Milton's  ear  was  too  busy  about  the  larger 
interests  of  his  measures  to  be  always  careful  of  the 
lesser.  He  was  a  strategist  rather  than  a  drill-sergeant 
in  verse,  capable,  beyond  any  other  English  poet,  of 
putting  great  masses  through  the  most  complicated 
evolutions  without  clash  or  confusion,  but  he  was  not 
curious  that  every  foot  should  be  at  the  same  angle.  In 
reading  "  Paradise  Lost  "  one  has  a  feeling  of  vastness. 
You  float  under  an  illimitable  sky,  brimmed  with  sun 
shine  or  hung  with  constellations  ;  the  abysses  of  space 

*  "  First  in  his  East,"  is  not  soothing  to  the  ear. 


MILTON.  287 

are  about  you ;  you  hear  the  cadenced  surges  of  an  un 
seen  ocean  ;  thunders  mutter  round  the  horizon ;  and  if 
the  scene  change,  it  is  with  an  elemental  movement  like 
the  shifting  df  rnighty  winds.  His  imagination  seldom 
condenses,  like  Shakespeare's,  in  the  kindling  flash  of  a 
single  epithet,  but  loves  better  to  diffuse  itself.  Witness 
his  descriptions,  wherein  he  seems  to  circle  like  an  eagle 
bathing  in  the  blue  streams  of  air,  controlling  with  his 
eye  broad  sweeps  of  champaign  or  of  sea,  and  rarely 
fulmining  in  the  sudden  swoop  of  intenser  expression. 
He  was  fonder  of  the  vague,  perhaps  I  should  rather 
say  the  indefinite,- where  more  is  meant  than  meets  the 
ear,  than  any  other  of  our  poets.  He  loved  epithets 
(like  old  and  far)  that  suggest  great  reaches,  whether 
of  space  or  time.  This  bias  shows  itself  already  in  his 
earlier  poems,  as  where  he  hears 

"  The  far  off  curfew  sound 
Over  some  widewatered  shore," 

or  where  he  fancies  the  shores*  and  sounding  seas 
washing  Lycidas  far  away ;  but  it  reaches  its  climax 
in  the  "  Paradise  Lost."  He  produces  his  effects  by 
dilating  our  imaginations  with  an  impalpable  hint 
rather  than  by  concentrating  them  upon  too  precise 
particulars.  Thus  in  a  famous  comparison  of  his,  the 
fleet  has  no  definite  port,  but  plies  stemming  nightly 
toward  the  pole  in  a  wide  ocean  of  conjecture.  He 
generalizes  always  instead  of  specifying,  —  the  true 
secret  of  the  ideal  treatment  in  which  he  is  without 
peer,  and,  though  everywhere  grandiose,  he  is  never 
turgid.  Tasso  begins  finely  with 

"Chiama  gli  abitator  dell'  ombre  eterne 
II  rauco  suon  della  tartarea  troniba ; 
Treman  le  spaziose  atre  caverne, 
E  1'  aer  cieco  a  quel  rumor  rirnbomba," 

*  There  seems  to  be  something  wrong  in  this  word  shores.     Did 
Milton  write  shoals'} 


288  MILTON. 

but  soon  spoils  all  by  condescending  to  definite  com 
parisons  with  thunder  and  intestinal  convulsions  of  the 
earth ;  in  other  words,  he  is  unwary  enough  to  give 
us  a  standard  of  measurement,  and  the  moment  you 
furnish  Imagination  with  a  yardstick  she  abdicates  in 
favor  of  her  statistical  poor-relation  Commonplace.  Mil 
ton,  with  this  passage  in  his  memory,  is  too  wise  to 
hamper  himself  with  any  statement  for  which  he  can  be 
brought  to  book,  but  wraps  himself  in  a  mist  of  looming 
indefiniteness ; 

"  He  called  so  loud  that  all  the  hollow  deep 
Of  hell  resounded," 

thus  amplifying  more  nobly  by  abstention  from  his  usual 
method  of  prolonged  evolution.  No  caverns,  however 
spacious,  will  serve  his  turn,  because  they  have  limits. 
He  could  practise  this  self-denial  when  his  artistic  sense 
found  it  needful,  whether  for  variety  of  verse  or  for  the 
greater  intensity  of  effect  to  be  gained  by  abruptness. 
His  more  elaborate  passages  have  the  multitudinous  roll 
of  thunder,  dying  away  to  gather  a  sullen  force  again 
from  its  own  reverberations,  but  he  knew  that  the  atten 
tion  is  recalled  and  arrested  by  those  claps  that  stop  short 
without  echo  and  leave  us  listening.  There  are  no  such 
vistas  and  avenues  of  verse  as  his.  In  reading  the 
"  Paradise  Lost "  one  has  a  feeling  of  spaciousness  such 
as  no  other  poet  gives.  Milton's  respect  for  himself  and 
for  his  own  mind  and  its  movements  rises  wellnigh  to 
veneration.  He  prepares  the  way  for  his  thought  and 
spreads  on  the  ground  before  the  sacred  feet  of  his  verse 
tapestries  inwoven  with  figures  of  mythology  and  ro 
mance.  There  is  no  such  unfailing  dignity  as  his. 
Observe  at  what  a  reverent  distance  he  begins  when  he 
is  about  to  speak  of  himself,  as  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Third  Book  and  the  Seventh.  His  sustained  strength  is 
especially  felt  in  his  beginnings.  He  seems  always  to 


MILTON.  289 

start  full-sail ;  the  wind  and  tide  always  serve  ;  there  is 
never  any  fluttering  of  the  canvas.  In  this  he  offers  a 
striking  contrast  with  Wordsworth,  who  has  to  go  through 
with  a  great  deal  of  yo-heave-ohing  before  he  gets  under 
way.  And  though,  in  the  didactic  parts  of  "  Paradise 
Lost,"  the  wind  dies  away  sometimes,  there  is  a  long 
swell  that  will  not  let  us  forget  it,  and  ever  and  anon 
some  eminent  verse  lifts  its  long  ridge  above  its  tamer 
peers  heaped  with  stormy  memories.  And  the  poem 
never  becomes  incoherent ;  we  feel  all  through  it,  as  in 
the  symphonies  of  Beethoven,  a  great  controlling  reason 
in  whose  safe-conduct  we  trust  implicitly. 

Mr.  Masson's  discussions  of  Milton's  English  are,  it 
seems  to  me,  for  the  most  part  unsatisfactory.  He  occu 
pies  some  ten  pages,  for  example,  with  a  history  of  the 
genitival  form  its,  which  adds  nothing  to  our  previous 
knowledge  on  the  subject  and  which  has  no  relation  to 
Milton  except  for  its  bearing  on  the  authorship  of  some 
verses  attributed  to  him  against  the  most  overwhelm 
ing  internal  evidence  to  the  contrary.  Mr.  Masson  is 
altogether  too  resolute  to  find  traces  of  what  he  calls 
oddly  enough  "  recollectiveness  of  Latin  constructions  " 
in  Milton,  and  scents  them  sometimes  in  what  would 
seem  to  the  uninstructed  reader  very  idiomatic  English. 
More  than  once,  at  least,  he  has  fancied  them  by  mis 
understanding  the  passage  in  which  they  seem  to  occur. 
Thus,  in  "Paradise  Lost,"  XI.  520,  521, 

"  Therefore  so  abject  is  their  punishment, 
Disfiguring  not  God's  likeness  but  their  own," 

has  no  analogy  with  eorum  deformantium,  for  the  context 
shows  that  it  is  the  punishment  which  disfigures.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Masson  so  often  finds  constructions  difficult,  ellipses 
strange,  and  words  needing  annotation  that  are  common 
to  all  poetry,  nay,  sometimes  to  all  English,  that  his 

13  s 


290  MILTON. 

notes  seem  not  seldom  to  have  been  written  by  a  for 
eigner.  On  this  passage  in  "  Comus," — 

"  I  do  not  think  my  sister  so  to  seek 
Or  so  unprincipled  in  virtue's  book 
And  the  sweet  peace  that  virtue  bosoms  ever 
As  that  the  single  want  of  light  and  noise 

(Not  being  in  danger,  as  I  trust  she  is  not) 

Could  stir  the  constant  mood  of  her  calm  thoughts," 

Mr.  Masson  tells  us,  that  "in  very  strict  construction, 
not  being  would  cling  to  want  as  its  substantive ;  but 
the  phrase  passes  for  the  Latin  ablative  absolute." 
So  on  the  words  forestalling  night,  "  i.  e.  anticipating. 
forestall  is  literally  to  anticipate  the  market  by  pur 
chasing  goods  before  they  are  brought  to  the  stall." 
In  the  verse 

"Thou  hast  immanacled  while  Heaven  sees  good," 

he  explains  that  "  while  here  has  the  sense  of  so  long 
as."  But  Mr.  Masson's  notes  on  the  language  are  his 
weakest.  He  is  careful  to  tell  us,  for  example,  "  that 
there  are  instances  of  the  use  of  shine  as  a  substantive 
in  Spenser,  Ben  Jonson,  and  other  poets."  It  is  but 
another  way  of  spelling  sheen,  and  if  Mr.  Masson  never 
heard  a  shoeblack  in  the  street  say,  "  Shall  I  give  you 
a  shine,  sir  1 "  his  experience  has  been  singular.*  His 

*  But  his  etymological  notes  are  worse.  For  example,  "recreant, 
renouncing  the  faith,  from  the  old  French  recroire,  which  again  is  from 
the  medieval  Latin  recredere,  to  'believe  back/  or  apostatize."  This 
is  pure  fancy.  The  word  had  no  such  meaning  in  either  language. 
He  derives  serenate  from  sera,  and  says  that  parle  means  treaty,  nego 
tiation,  though  it  is  the  same  word  as  parley,  had  the  same  meanings, 
and  was  commonly  pronounced  like  it,  as  in  Marlowe's 
"  What,  shall  we  parle  with  this  Christian  ?  " 

It  certainly  never  meant  treaty,  though  it  may  have  meant  negotia 
tion.  When  it  did  it  implied  the  meeting  face  to  face  of  the  principals. 

On  the  verses 

"  And  some  flowers  and  some  bays 
For  thy  hearse  to  strew  the  ways," 


MILTON.  291 

notes  in  general  are  very  good  (though  too  long).  Those 
on  the  astronomy  of  Milton  are  particularly  valuable.  I 
think  he  is  sometimes  a  little  too  scornful  of  parallel  pas 
sages,*  for  if  there  is  one  thing  more  striking  than  another 
in  this  poet,  it  is  that  his  great  and  original  imagination 
was  almost  wholly  nourished  by  books,  perhaps  I  should 
rather  say  set  in  motion  by  them.  It  is  wonderful  how, 
from  the  most  withered  and  juiceless  hint  gathered  in 
his  reading,  his  grand  images  rise  like  an  exhalation ; 
how  from  the  most  battered  old  lamp  caught  in  that 
huge  drag-net  with  which  he  swept  the  waters  of  learn 
ing,  he  could  conjure  a  tall  genius  to  build  .his  palaces. 
Whatever  he  touches  swells  and  towers.  That  wonder 
ful  passage  in  Comus  of  the  airy  tongues,  perhaps  the 
most  imaginative  in  suggestion  he  ever  wrote,  was  con 
jured  out  of  a  dry  sentence  in  Purchas's  abstract  of  Marco 
Polo.  Such  examples  help  us  to  understand  the  poet. 
When  I  find  that  Sir  Thomas  Browne  had  said  before 
Milton,  that  Adam  " was  the  wisest  of  all  men  since"  I 
am  glad  to  find  this  link  between  the  most  profound 
and  the  most  stately  imagination  of  that  age.  Such  par 
allels  sometimes  give  a  hint  also  of  the  historical  devel 
opment  of  our  poetry,  of  its  apostolical  succession,  so 
to  speak.  Every  one  has  noticed  Milton's  fondness  of 
sonorous  proper  names,  which  have  not  only  an  acquired 
imaginative  value  by  association,  and  so  serve  to  awaken 
our  poetic  sensibilities,  but  have  likewise  a  merely  musical 

he  has  a  note  to  tell  us  that  hearse  is  not  to  be  taken  "in  our  sense 
of  a  carnage  for  the  dead,  but  in  the  older  sense  of  a  tomb  or  frame 
work  over  a  tomb,"  though  the  obvious  meaning  is  "to  strew  the 
ways  for  thy  hearse."  How  could  one  do  that  for  a  tomb  or  the 
framework  over  it  ? 

*  A  passage  from  Dante  (Inferno,  XI.  96-105),  with  its  reference 
to  Aristotle,  would  have  given  him  the  meaning  of  "  Nature  taught 
art,"  which  seems  to  puzzle  him.  A  study  of  Dante  and  of  his  earlier 
commentators  would  also  have  been  of  great  service  in  the  astronomi 
cal  notes. 


292  MILTON. 

significance.  This  he  probably  caught  from  Marlowe, 
traces  of  whom  are  frequent  in  him.  There  is  certainly 
something  of  what  afterwards  came  to  be  called  Mil- 
tonic  in  more  than  one  passage  of  "  Tamburlaine,"  a 
play  in  which  gigantic  force  seems  struggling  from  the 
block,  as  in  Michel  Angelo's  Dawn. 

Mr.  Masson's  remarks  on  the  versification  of  Milton 
are,  in  the  main,  judicious,  but  when  he  ventures  on  par 
ticulars,  one  cannot  always  agree  with  him.  He  seems 
to  understand  that  our  prosody  is  accentual  merely,  and 
yet,  when  he  comes  to  what  he  calls  variations,  he  talks 
of  the  "  substitution  of  the  Trochee,  the  Pyrrhic,  or  the 
Spondee,  for  the  regular  Iambus,  or  of  the  Anapaest, 
the  Dactyl,  the  Tribrach,  etc.,  for  the  same."  This  is 
always  misleading.  The  shift  of  the  accent  in  what 
Mr.  Masson  calls  "  dissyllabic  variations  "  is  common  to 
all  pentameter  verse,  and,  in  the  other  case,  most  of 
the  words  cited  as  trisyllables  either  were  not  so  in 
Milton's  day,*  or  were  so  or  not  at  choice  of  the  poet, 
according  to  their  place  in  the  verse.  There  is  not  an 
elision  of  Milton's  without  precedent  in  the  dramatists 
from  whom  he  learned  to  write  blank- verse.  Milton  was 
a  greater  metrist  than  any  of  them,  except  Marlowe  and 
Shakespeare,  and  he  employed  the  elision  (or  the  slur) 
oftener  than  they  to  give  a  faint  undulation  or  retarda 
tion  to  his  verse,  only  because  his  epic  form  demanded 
it  more  for  variety's  sake.  How  Milton  would  have  read 
them,  is  another  question.  He  certainly  often  marked 
them  by  an  apostrophe  in  his  manuscripts.  He  doubt 
less  composed  according  to  quantity,  so  far  as  that  is 
possible  in  English,  and  as  Cowper  somewhat  extrava- 

*  Almost  every  combination  of  two  vowels  might  in  those  days  be 
a  diphthong  or  not,  at  will.  Milton's  practice  of  elision  was  confirmed 
and  sometimes  (perhaps)  modified  by  his  study  of  the  Italians,  with 
whose  usage  in  this  respect  he  closely  conforms. 


MILTON.  293 

gantly  says,  "  gives  almost  as  many  proofs  of  it  in  his 
'  Paradise  Lost '  as  there  are  lines  in  the  poem."  *  But 
when  Mr.  Masson  tells  us  that 

"Self-fed  and  self -consumed  :  if  this  fail," 
and 

"  Dwells  in  all  Heaven  charity  so  rare," 

are  "  only  nine  syllables,"  and  that  in 

"  Created  hugest  that  swim  the  ocean-stream," 
"  either  the  third  foot  must  be  read  as  an  anapaest  or  the 
word  hugest  must  be  pronounced  as  one  syllable,  hug'st" 
I  think  Milton  would  have  invoked  the  soul  of  Sir  John 
Cheek.     Of  course  Milton  read  it 

"  Created  hugest  that  swim  th'  ocean-stream," 
just  as  he  wrote  (if  we  may  trust  Mr.  Masson's  facsimile) 

"  Thus  sang  the  uncouth  swain  to  th'  oaks  and  rills," 

a  verse  in  which  both  hiatus  and  elision  occur  precisely 
as  in  the  Italian  poets,  t     "  Gest  that  swim  "  would  be 
rather  a  knotty  anapaest,  an  insupportable  foot  indeed  ! 
And  why  is  even  hug'st  worse  than  Shakespeare's 
"  Young' st  follower  of  thy  drum  "  ? 

In  the  same  way  he  says  of 

j  »/ 

"  For  we  have  also  our  evening  and  our  morn," 
that  "  the  metre  of  this  line  is  irregular,"  and  of  the 
rapidly  fine 

"  Came  flying  and  in  mid  air  aloud  thus  cried," 
that  it  is  "  a  line  of  unusual  metre."   Why  more  unusual 

than 

"  As  being  the  contrary  to  his  high  will "  ? 

What  would  Mr'.  Masson  say  to  these  three  verses  from 
Dekkar?  — 

*  Letter  to  Rev.  W.  Bagot,  4th  January,  1791. 

t  So  Dante  :  — 

"  Ma  sapienza  e  amore  e  virtute." 
So  Donne : — 

"  Simony  and  sodomy  in  churchmen's  lives." 


294  MILTON. 

"  And  knowing  so  much,  I  muse  thou  art  so  poor  "  ; 

"I  fan  away  the  dust  flying  in  mine  eyes  "  ; 

" Flowing  o'er  with  court  news  only  of  you  and  them." 

All  such  participles  (where  no  consonant  divided  the 
vowels)  were  normally  of  one  syllable,  permissibly  of 
two.*  If  Mr.  Masson  had  studied  the  poets  who  pre 
ceded  Milton  as  he  has  studied  him,  he  would  never 
have  said  that  the  verse 

"  Not  this  rock  only;  his  omnipresence  fills," 
was  "peculiar  as  having  a  distinct  syllable  of  over- 
measure."  He  retains  Milton's  spelling  of  hunderd 
without  perceiving  the  metrical  reason  for  it,  that 
d,  t,  p,  b,  &c.,  followed  by  I  or  r,  might  be  either  of  two 
or  of  three  syllables.  In  Marlowe  we  find  it  both  ways 
in  two  consecutive  verses  :  — 

"A  hundred  [hundered]  and  fifty  thousand  horse, 
Two  hundred  thousand  foot,  brave  men  at  arms."  t 

Mr.  Masson  is  especially  puzzled  by  verses  ending  in  one 
or  more  unaccented  syllables,  and  even  argues  in  his 
Introduction  that  some  of  them  might  be  reckoned 
Alexandrines.  He  cites  some  lines  of  Spenser  as  con 
firming  his  theory,  forgetting  that  rhyme  wholly  changes 
the  conditions  of  the  case  by  throwing  the  accent  (ap 
preciably  even  now,  but  more  emphatically  in  Spenser's 
day)  on  the  last  syllable. 

"  A  spirit  and  judgment  equal  or  superior," 

*  Mr.  Masson  is  evidently  not  very  familiar  at  first  hand  with  the 
versification  to  which  Milton's  youthful  ear  had  been  trained,  but  seems 
to  have  learned  something  from  Abbott's  "  Shakespearian  Grammar  " 
in  the  interval  between  writing  his  notes  and  his  Introduction.  Walk 
er's  "  Shakespeare's  Versification  "  would  have  been  a  great  help  to 
him  in  default  of  original  knowledge. 

t  Milton  has  a  verse  in  Comus  where  the  e  is  elided  from  the  word 
sister  by  its  preceding  a  vowel :  — 

"  Heaven  keep  my  sister !  again,  again,  and  near  !  " 
This  would  have  been  impossible  before  a  consonant. 


MILTON.  295 

he  calls  "  a  remarkably  anomalous  line,  consisting  of 
twelve  or  even  thirteen  syllables."  Surely  Milton's  ear 
•would  never  have  tolerated  a  dissyllabic  "  spirit  "  in  such 
a  position.  The  word  was  then  more  commonly  of  one 
syllable,  though  it  might  be  two,  and  was  accordingly 
spelt  spreet  (still  surviving  in  sprite),  sprit,  and  even 
spirt,  as  Milton  himself  spells  it  in  one  of  Mr.  Masson's 
facsimiles.*  Shakespeare,  in  the  verse 

"  Hath  put  a  spirit  of  youth  in  everything," 

uses  the  word  admirably  well  in  a  position  where  it  can 
not  have  a  metrical  value  of  more  than  one  syllable, 
while  it  gives  a  dancing  movement  to  the  verse  in  keep 
ing  with  the  sense.  Our  old  metrists  were  careful  of 
elasticity,  a  quality  which  modern  verse  has  lost  in 
proportion  as  our  language  has  stiffened  into  uniformity 
under  the  benumbing  fingers  of  pedants. 

This  discussion  of  the  value  of  syllables  is  not  so 
trifling  as  it  seems.  A  great  deal  of  nonsense  has  been 
written  about  imperfect  measures  in  Shakespeare,  and 
of  the  admirable  dramatic  effect  produced  by  filling  up 
the  gaps  of  missing  syllables  with  pauses  or  prolonga 
tions  of  the  voice  in  reading.  In  rapid,  abrupt,  and  pas 
sionate  dialogue  this  is  possible,  but  in  passages  of  con 
tinuously  level  speech  it  is  barbarously  absurd.  I  do 
not  believe  that  any  of  our  old  dramatists  has  know 
ingly  left  us  a  single  imperfect  verse.  Seeing  in  what  a 
haphazard  way  and  in  how  mutilated  a  form  their  plays 
have  mostly  reached  us,  we  should  attribute  such  faults 
(as  a  geologist  would  call  them)  to  anything  rather  than 
to  the  delibei-ate  design  of  the  poets.  Marlowe  and 
Shakespeare,  the  two  best  metrists  among  them,  have 
given  us  a  standard  by  which  to  measure  what  licenses 
they  took  in  versification, —  the  one  in  his  translations, 

*  So  spirito  and  spirto  in  Italian,  esperis  and  espirs  in  Old  French. 


296  MILTON. 

the  other  in  his  poems.  The  unmanageable  verses  in 
Milton  are  very  few,  and  all  of  them  occur  in  works 
printed  after  his  blindness  had  lessened  the  chances  of 
supervision  and  increased  those  of  error.  There  are 
only  two,  indeed,  which  seem  to  me  wholly  indigestible 
as  they  stand.  These  are, 

"  Burnt  after  them  to  the  bottomless  pit," 

and 

"  With  them  from  bliss  to  the  bottomless  deep." 

This  certainly  looks  like  a  case  where  a  word  had  dropped 
out  or  had  been  stricken  out  by  some  proof-reader 
who  limited  the  number  of  syllables  in  a  pentameter 
verse  by  that  of  his  finger-ends.  Mr.  Masson  notices 
only  the  first  of  these  lines,  and  says  that  to  make  it 
regular  by  accenting  the  word  bottomless  on  the  second 
syllable  would  be  "too  horrible."  Certainly  not,  if 
Milton  so  accented  it,  any  more  than  blasphemous  and 
twenty  more  which  sound  oddly  to  us  now.  However 
that  may  be,  Milton  could  not  have  intended  to  close 
not  only  a  period,  but  a  paragraph  also,  with  an  un 
musical  verse,  and  in  the  only  other  passage  where  the 
word  occurs  it  is  accented  as  now  on  the  first  syllable  : 

"  With  hideous  ruin  and  combustion  down 
To  bottomless  perdition,  there  to  dwell." 

As  bottom  is  a  word  which,  like  bosom  and  besom,  may 
be  monosyllabic  or  dissyllabic  according  to  circumstan 
ces,  I  am  persuaded  that  the  last  passage  quoted  (and 
all  three  refer  to  the  same  event)  gives  us  the  word 
wanting  in  the  two  others,  and  that  Milton  wrote,  or 
meant  to  write,  — 

"Burnt  after  them  down  to  the  bottomless  pit," 

which  leaves  in  the  verse  precisely  the  kind  of  ripple 
that  Milton  liked  best.* 

*  Milton,  however,  would  not  have  balked  at  th'  bottomless  any 


MILTON.  297 

Much  of  what  Mr.  Masson  says  in  his  Introduc 
tion  of  the  way  in  which  the  verses  of  Milton  should  be 
read  is  judicious  enough,  though  some  of  the  examples 
he  gives,  of  the  "  comicality  "  which  would  ensue  from 
compressing  every  verse  into  an  exact  measure  of  ten 
syllables,  are  based  on  a  surprising  ignorance  of  the  laws 
which  guided  our  poets  just  before  and  during  Milton's 
time  in  the  structure  of  their  verses.  Thus  he  seems  to 
think  that  a  strict  scansion  would  require  us  in  the  verses 

"  So  he  with  difficulty  and  labor  hard," 
and 

"  Carnation,  purple,  azure,  or  specked  with  gold," 

to  pronounce  diffikty  and  purp\  Though  Mr.  Masson 
talks  of  "  slurs  and  elisions,"  his  ear  would  seem  some 
what  insensible  to  their  exact  nature  or  office.  His 
diffikty  supposes  a  hiatus  where  none  is  intended,  and 
his  making  purple  of  one  syllable  wrecks  the  whole 
verse,  the  real  slur  in  the  latter  case  being  on  azure 
or*  When  he  asks  whether  Milton  required  "  these 
pronunciations  in  his  verse,"  no  positive  answer  can  be 
given,  but  I  very  much  doubt  whether  he  would  have 
thought  that  some  of  the  lines  Mr.  Masson  cites  "re 
main  perfectly  good  Blank  Verse  even  with  the  most 
leisurely  natural  enunciation  of  the  spare  syllable,"  and 
I  am  sure  he  would  have  stared  if  told  that  "  the  num 
ber  of  accents  "  in  a  pentameter  verse  was  "  variable." 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  elisions  and  compressions 
which  would  be  thought  in  bad  taste  or  even  vulgar 
now  were  more  abhorrent  to  the  ears  of  Milton's  gen- 
more  than  Drayton  at  th'  rejected  or  Donne  at  th'  sea.  Mr.  Mas- 
son  does  not  seem  to  understand  this  elision,  for  he  corrects  i'  th' 
midst  to  i'  the  midst,  and  takes  pains  to  mention  it  in  a  note.  He 
might  better  have  restored  the  n  in  i',  where  it  is  no  contraction,  but 
merely  indicates  the  pronunciation,  as  o'  for  of  and  on. 

*  Exactly  analogous  to  that  in  treasurer  when  it  is  shortened  to 
two  syllables. 

13* 


298  MILTON. 

eration  than  to  a  cultivated  Italian  would  be  the  hear 
ing  Dante  read  as  prose.  After  all,  what  Mr.  Masson 
says  may  be  reduced  to  the  infallible  axiom  that  poetry 
should  be  read  as  poetry. 

Mr.  Masson  seems  to  be  right  in  his  main  principles, 
but  the  examples  he  quotes  make  one  doubt  whether 
he  knows  what  a  verse  is.  For  example,  he  thinks  it 
would  be  a  "  horror,"  if  in  the  verse 

"  That  invincible  Samson  far  renowned  " 

we  should  lay  the  stress  on  the  first  syllable  of  invin 
cible.  It  is  hard  to  see  why  this  should  be  worse  than 
conventicle  or  remonstrance  or  successor  or  incompatible, 
(the  three  latter  used  by  the  correct  Daniel)  or  why  Mr. 
Masson  should  clap  an  accent  on  surfcice  merely  be 
cause  it  comes  at  the  end  of  a  verse,  and  deny  it  to 
invincible.  If  one  read  the  verse  just  cited  with  those 
that  go  with  it,  he  will  find  that  the  accent  must 
come  on  the  first  syllable  of  invincible  or  else  the  whole 
passage  becomes  chaos.*  Should  we  refuse  to  say 
obleeged  with  Pope  becaxise  the  fashion  has  changed  ? 
From  its  apparently  greater  freedom  in  skilful  hands, 
blank-verse  gives  more  scope  to  sciolistic  theorizing  and 
dogmatism  than  the  rhyming  pentameter  couplet,  but  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  no  verse  is  good  in  the  one  that  would 
not  be  good  in  the  other  when  handled  by  a  master  like 
Dryden.  Milton,  like  other  great  poets,  wrote  some  bad 
verses,  and  it  is  wiser  to  confess  that  they  are  so  than  to 
conjure  up  some  unimaginable  reason  why  the  reader 
should  accept  them  as  the  better  for  their  badnes^. 
Such  a  bad  verse  is 

*  Milton  himself  has  invisible,  for  we  cannot  suppose  him  guilty 
of  a  verse  like 

"Shoots  invisible  virtue  even  to  the  deep,"  "  ^ 

while,  if  read  rightly,  it  has  just  one  of  those  sweeping  elisions  that 
he  loved. 


MILTON.  299 

"  Rocks,  caves,  lakes,  fens,  bogs,  dens  and  shapes  of  death," 

which  might  be  cited  to  illustrate  Pope's 

"And  ten  low  words  oft  creep  in  one  dull  line." 

Milton  cannot  certainly  be  taxed  with  any  partiality 
for  low  words.  He  rather  loved  them  tall,  as  the  Prus 
sian  King  loved  men  to  be  six  feet  high  in  their  stock 
ings,  and  fit  to  go  into  the  grenadiers.  He  loved  them 
as  much  for  their  music  as  for  their  meaning,  —  perhaps 
more.  His  style,  therefore,  when  it  has  to  deal  with 
commoner  things,  is  apt  to  grow  a  little  cumbrous  and 
unwieldy.  A  Pei-sian  poet  says  that  when  the  owl 
would  boast  he  boasts  of  catching  mice  at  the  edge  of  a 
hole.  Shakespeare  would  have  understood  this.  Mil 
ton  would  have  made  him  talk  like  an  eagle.  His 
influence  is  not  to  be  left  out  of  account  as  partially 
contributing  to  that  decline  toward  poetic  diction  which 
was  already  beginning  ere  he  died.  If  it  would  not 
be  fair  to  say  that  he  is  the  most  artistic,  he  may  be 
called  in  the  highest  sense  the  most  scientific  of  our 
poets.  If  to  Spenser  younger  poets  have  gone  to  be 
sung-to,  they  have  sat  at  the  feet  of  Milton  to  be  taught. 
Our  language  has  no  finer  poem  than  "  Samson  Agonis- 
tes,"  if  any  so  fine  in  the  quality  of  austere  dignity  or 
in  the  skill  with  which  the  poet's  personal  experience  is 
generalized  into  a  classic  tragedy. 

Gentle  as  Milton's  earlier  portraits  would  seem  to 
show  him,  he  had  in  him  by  nature,  or  bred  into  him 
by  fate,  something  of  the  haughty  and  defiant  self-asser 
tion  of  Dante  and  Michel  Angelo.  In  no  other  English 
author  is  the  man  so  large  a  part  of  his  works.  Milton's 
haughty  conception  of  himself  enters  into  all  he  says 
and  does.  Always  the  necessity  of  this  one  man  became 
that  of  the  whole  human  race  for  the  moment.  There 
were  no  walls  so  sacred  but  must  go  to  the  ground  when 


300  MILTON. 

he  wanted  elbow-room;  and  he  wanted  a  great  deal.  Did 
Mary  Powell,  the  cavalier's  daughter,  find  the  abode 
of  a  roundhead  schoolmaster  incompatible  and  leave  it, 
forthwith  the  cry  of  the  universe  was  for  an  easier  dis 
solution  of  the  marriage  covenant.  If  he  is  blind,  it  is 
with  excess  of  light,  it  is  a  divine  partiality,  an  over 
shadowing  with  angels'  wings.  Phineus  and  Teiresias 
are  admitted  among  the  prophets  because  they,  too,  had 
lost  their  sight,  and  the  blindness  of  Homer  is  of  more 
account  than  his  Iliad.  After  writing  in  rhyme  till  he 
was  past  fifty,  he  finds  it  unsuitable  for  his  epic,  and  it 
at  once  becomes  "  the  invention  of  a  barbarous  age  to 
set  off"  wretched  matter  and  lame  metre."  If  the  struc 
ture  of  his  mind  be  undramatic,  why,  then,  the  English 
drama  is  naught,  learned  Jonson,  sweetest  Shakespeare, 
and  the  rest  notwithstanding,  and  he  will  compose  a 
tragedy  on  a  Greek  model  with  the  blinded  Samson  for 
its  hero,  and  he  will  compose  it  partly  in  rhyme.  Plainly 
he  belongs  to  the  intenser  kind  of  men  whose  yesterdays 
are  in  no  way  responsible  for  their  to-morrows.  And 
this  makes  him  perennially  interesting  even  to  those 
who  hate  his  politics,  despise  his  Socinianism,  and  find 
his  greatest  poem  a  bore.  A  new  edition  of  his  poems 
is  always  welcome,  for,  as  he  is  really  great,  he  presents 
a  fresh  side  to  each  new  student,  and  Mr.  Masson,  in  his 
three  handsome  volumes,  has  given  us,  with  much  that 
is  superfluous  and  even  erroneous,  much  more  that  is 
a  solid  and  permanent  acquisition  to  our  knowledge. 

It  results  from  the  almost  scornful  withdrawal  of  Mil 
ton  into  the  fortress  of  his  absolute  personality  that  no 
great  poet  is  so  uniformly  self-conscious  as  he.  We 
should  say  of  Shakespeare  that  he  had  the  power  of 
transforming  himself  into  everything ;  of  Milton,  that 
he  had  that  of  transforming  everything  into  himself. 
Dante  is  individual  rather  than  self-conscious,  and  he, 


MILTON.  301 

the  cast-iron  man,  grows  pliable  as  a  field  of  grain  at 
the  breath  of  Beatrice,  and  flows  away  in  waves  of  sun 
shine.  But  Milton  never  let  himself  go  for  a  moment. 
As  other  poets  are  possessed  by  their  theme,  so  is  he 
^/-possessed,  his  great  theme  being  John  Milton,  and 
his  great  duty  that  of  interpreter  between  him  and  the 
world.  I  say  it  with  all  respect,  for  he  was  well  worthy 
translation,  and  it  is  out  of  Hebrew  that  the  version  is 
made.  Pope  says  he  makes  God  the  Father  reason  "  like 
a  school-divine."  The  criticism  is  witty,  but  inaccurate. 
He  makes  Deity  a  mouthpiece  for  his  present  theology, 
and  had  the  poem  been  written  a  few  years  later,  the 
Almighty  would  have  become  more  heterodox.  Since 
Dante,  no  one  had  stood  on  these  visiting  terms  with 
heaven. 

Now  it  is  precisely  this  audacity  of  self-reliance,  I  sus 
pect,  which  goes  far  toward  making  the  sublime,  and 
which,  falling  by  a  hair's-breadth  short  thereof,  makes 
the  ridiculous.  Puritanism  showed  both  the  strength 
and  weakness  of  its'  prophetic  nurture ;  enough  of  the 
latter  to  be  scoffed  out  of  England  by  the  very  men  it 
had  conquered  in  the  field,  enough  of  the  former  to  in 
trench  itself  in  three  or  four  immortal  memories.  It 
has  left  an  abiding  mark  in  politics  and  religion,  but  its 
great  monuments  are  the  prose  of  Bunyan  and  the 
verse  of  Milton.  It  is  a  high  inspiration  to  be  the  neigh 
bor  of  great  events  ;  to  have  been  a  partaker  in  them  and 
to  have  seen  noble  purposes  by  their  own  self-confidence 
become  the  very  means  of  ignoble  ends,  if  it  do  not 
wholly  depress,  may  kindle  a  passion  of  regret  deepen 
ing  the  song  which  dares  not  tell  the  reason  of  its 
sorrow.  The  grand  loneliness  of  Milton  in  his  latter 
years,  while  it  makes  him  the  most  impressive  figure 
in  our  literary  history,  is  reflected  also  in  his  maturer 
poems  by  a  sublime  independence  of  human  sympathy 


302  MILTON. 

like  that  with  which  mountains  fascinate  and  rebuff  us. 
But  it  is  idle  to  talk  of  the  loneliness  of  one  the  habitual 
companions  of  whose  mind  were  the  Past  and  Future.  I 
always  seem  to  see  him  leaning  in  his  blindness  a  hand 
on  the  shoulder  of  each,  sure  that  the  one  will  guard 
the  song  which  the  other  had  inspired. 


KEATS. 


THERE  are  few  poets  whose  works  contain  slighter  hints 
of  their  personal  history  than  those  of  Keats  ;  yet  there 
are,  perhaps,  even  fewer  whose  real  lives,  or  rather  the 
conditions  upon  which  they  lived,  are  more  clearly  trace 
able  in  what  they  have  written.  To  write  the  life  of  a 
man  was  formerly  understood  to  mean  the  cataloguing 
and  placing  of  circumstances,  of  those  things  which  stood 
about  the  life  and  were  more  or  less  related  to  it,  but 
were  not  the  life  itself.  But  Biography  from  day  to  day 
holds  dates  cheaper  and  facts  dearer.  A  man's  life,  so 
far  as  its  outward  events  are  concerned,  may  be  made 
for  him,  as  his  clothes  are  by  the  tailor,  of  this  cut  or 
that,  of  finer  or  coarser  material;  but  the  gait  and  ges 
ture  show  through,  and  give  to  trappings,  in  themselves 
characterless,  an  individuality  that  belongs  to  the  man 
himself.  It  is  those  essential  facts  which  underlie  the 
life  and  make  the  individual  man  that  are  of  importance, 
and  it  is  the  cropping  out  of  these  upon  the  surface  that 
gives  us  indications  by  which  to  judge  of  the  true  nature 
hidden  below.  Every  man  has  his  block  given  him,  and 
the  figure  he  cuts  will  depend  very  much  upott  the  shape 
of  that, —  upon  the  knots  and  twists  which  existed  in  it 
from  the  beginning.  We  were  designed  in  the  cradle, 
perhaps  earlier,  and  it  is  in  finding  out  this  design,  and 
shaping  ourselves  to  it,  that  our  years  are  spent  wisely. 


304  KEATS. 

It  is  the  vain  endeavor  to  make  ourselves  what  we  are 
not  that  has  strewn  history  with  so  many  broken  pur 
poses  and  lives  left  in  the  rough. 

Keats  hardly  lived  long  enough  to  develop  a  well- 
outlined  character,  for  that  results  commonly  from  the 
resistance  made  by  temperament  to  the  many  influences 
by  which  the  world,  as  it  may  happen  then  to  be,  en 
deavors  to  mould  every  one  in  its  own  image.  What  his 
temperament  was  we  can  see  clearly,  and  also  that  it  sub 
ordinated  itself  more  and  more  to  the  discipline  of  art. 

JOHN  KEATS,  the  second  of  four  children,  like  Chaucer 
and  Spenser,  was  a  Londoner,  but,  unlike  them,  he  was 
certainly  not  of  gentle  blood.  Lord  Houghton,  who 
seems  to  have  had  a  kindly  wish  to  create  him  gentleman 
by  brevet,  says  that  he  was  "  born  in  the  upper  ranks  of 
the  middle  class."  This  shows  a  commendable  tender 
ness  for  the  nerves  of  English  society,  and  reminds  one 
of  Northcote's  story  of  the  violin-player  who,  wishing  to 
compliment  his  pupil,  George  III.,  divided  all  fiddlers 
into  three  classes,  —  those  who  could  not  play  at  all, 
those  who  played  very  badly,  and  those  who  played  very 
well,  —  assuring  his  Majesty  that  he  had  made  such  com 
mendable  progress  as  to  have  already  reached  the  second 
rank.  We  shall  not  be  too  greatly  shocked  by  knowing 
that  the  father  of  Keats  (as  Lord  Houghton  had  told 
us  in  an  earlier  biography)  "  was  employed  in  the  estab 
lishment  of  Mr.  Jennings,  the  proprietor  of  large  livery- 
stables  on  the  Pavement  in  Moorfields,  nearly  opposite 
the  entrance  into  Finsbury  Circus."  So  that,  after  all, 
it  was  not  so  bad ;  for,  first,  Mr.  Jennings  was  a  propri 
etor  ;  second,  he  was  the  proprietor  of  an  establishment  ; 
third,  he  was  the  proprietor  of  a  large  establishment ; 
and  fourth,  this  large  establishment  was  nearly  opposite 
Finsbury  Circus, —  a  name  which  vaguely  dilates  the 


KEATS.  305 

imagination  with  all  sorts  of  potential  grandeurs.  It 
is  true  Leigh  Hunt  asserts  that  Keats  "  was  a  little  too 
sensitive  on  the  score  of  his  origin,"*  but  we  can  find  no 
trace  of  such  a  feeling  either  in  his  poetry  or  in  such  of 
his  letters  as  have  been  printed.  We  suspect  the  fact 
to  have  been  that  he  resented  with  becoming  pride  the 
vulgar  Blackwood  and  Quarterly  standard,  which  meas 
ured  genius  by  genealogies.  It  is  enough  that  his  poeti 
cal  pedigree  is  of  the  best,  tracing  through  Spenser  to 
Chaucer,  and  that  Pegasus  does  not  stand  at  livery  even 
in  the  largest  establishments  in  Moorfields. 

As  well  as  we  can  make  out,  then,  the  father  of  Keats 
was  a  groom  in  the  service  of  Mr.  Jennings,  and  married 
the  daughter  of  his  master.  Thus,  on  the  mother's  side, 
at  least,  we  find  a  grandfather ;  on  the  father's  there  is 
no  hint  of  such  an  ancestor,  and  we  must  charitably  take 
him  for  granted.  It  is  of  more  importance  that  the  elder 
Keats  was  a  man  of  sense  and  energy,  and  that  his  wife 
was  a  "  lively  and  intelligent  woman,  who  hastened 
the  birth  of  the  poet  by  her  passionate  love  of  amuse 
ment,"  bringing  him  into  the  world,  a  seven-months' child, 
on  the  29th  October,  1795,  instead  of  the  29th  of  De 
cember,  as  would  have  been  conventionally  proper.  Lord 
Houghton  describes  her  as  "  tall,  with  a  large  oval  face, 
and  a  somewhat  saturnine  demeanour."  This  last  cir 
cumstance  does  not  agree  very  well  with  what  he  had 
just  before  told  us  of  her  liveliness,  but  he  consoles 'us 
by  adding  that  "  she  succeeded,  however,  in  inspiring  her 
children  with  the  profoundest  affection."  This  was  par 
ticularly  true  of  John,  who  once,  when  between  four  and 
five  years  old,  mounted  guard  at  her  chamber  door  with 
an  old  sword,  when  she  was  ill  and  the  doctor  had  or 
dered  her  not  to  be  disturbed.t 

*  Hunt's  Autobiography  (Am.  ed. ),  Vol.  II.  p.  36. 
t  Haydon  tells  the  story  differently,  but  I  think  Lord  Houghton's 
version  the  best. 


306  KEATS. 

In  1804,  Keats  being  in  his  ninth  year,  his  father  was 
killed  by  a  fall  from  his  horse.  His  mother  seems  to 
have  been  ambitious  for  her  children,  and  there  was 
some  talk  of  sending  John  to  Harrow.  Fortunately  this 
plan  was  thought  too  expensive,  and  he  was  sent  instead 
to  the  school  of  Mr.  Clarke  at  Enfield  with  his  brothers. 
A  maternal  uncle,  who  had  distinguished  himself  by  his 
courage  under  Duncan  at  Camperdown,  was  the  hero  of 
his  nephews,  and  they  went  to  school  resolved  to  main 
tain  the  family  reputation  for  courage.  John  was  always 
fighting,  and  was  chiefly  noted  among  his  school-fellows 
as  a  strange  compound  of  pluck  and  sensibility.  He 
attacked  an  usher  who  had  boxed  his  brother's  ears ;  and 
when  his  mother  died,  in  1810,  was  moodily  inconsolable, 
hiding  himself  for  several  days  in  a  nook  under  the 
master's  desk,  and  refusing  all  comfort  from  teacher  or 
friend. 

He  was  popular  at  school,  as  boys  of  spirit  always  are, 
and  impressed  his  companions  with  a  sense  of  his  power. 
They  thought  he  would  one  day  be  a  famous  soldier. 
This  may  have  been  owing  to  the  stories  he  told  them 
of  the  heroic  uncle,  whose  deeds,  we  may  be  sure,  were 
properly  famoused  by  the  boy  Homer,  and  whom  they 
probably  took  for  an  admiral  at  the  least,  as  it  would 
have  been  well  for  Keats's  literary  prosperity  if  he  had 
been.  At  any  rate,  they  thought  John  would  be  a  great 
man,  which  is  the  main  thing,  for  the  public  opinion  of 
the  playground  is  truer  and  more  discerning  than  that 
of  the  world,  and  if  you  tell  us  what  the  boy  was,  we 
will  tell  you  what  the  man  longs  to  be,  however  he 
may  be  repressed  by  necessity  or  fear  of  the  police 
reports. 

Lord  Hough  ton  has  failed  to  discover  anything  else 
especially  worthy  of  record  in  the  school-life  of  Keats. 
He  translated  the  twelve  books  of  the  JEneid,  read  Rob- 


KEATS.  307 

inson  Crusoe  and  the  Incas  of  Peru,  and  looked  into 
Shakespeare.  He  left  school  in  1810,  with  little  Latin 
and  no  Greek,  but  he  had  studied  Spence's  Polyme- 
tis,  Tooke's  Pantheon,  and  Lempriere's  Dictionary,  and 
knew  gods,  nymphs,  and  heroes,  which  were  quite  as  good 
company  perhaps  for  him  as  aorists  and  aspirates.  It 
is  pleasant  to  fancy  the  horror  of  those  respectable 
writers  if  their  pages  could  suddenly  have  become  alive 
under  their  pens  with  all  that  the  young  poet  saw  in 
them.* 

On  leaving  school  he  was  apprenticed  for  five  years  to 
a  surgeon  at  Edmonton.  His  master  was  a  Mr.  Ham 
mond,  "of  some  eminence"  in  his  profession,  as  Lord 
Houghton  takes  care  to  assure  us.  The  place  was  of 
more  importance  than  the  master,  for  its  neighborhood 
to  Enfield  enabled  him  to  keep  up  his  intimacy  with  the 
family  of  his  former  teacher,  Mr.  Clarke,  and  to  borrow 
books  of  them.  In  1812,  when  he  was  in  his  seventeenth 
year,  Mr.  Charles  Cowden  Clarke  lent  him  the  "  Faerie 
Queene."  Nothing  that  is  told  of  Orpheus  or  Amphion 


*  There  is  always  some  one  willing  to  make  himself  a  sort  of  acces 
sary  after  the  fact  in  any  success  ;  always  an  old  woman  or  two,  ready 
to  remember  omens  of  all  quantities  and  qualities  in  the  childhood  of 
persons  who  have  become  distinguished.  Accordingly,  a  certain  "  Mrs. 
Grafty,  of  Craven  Street,  Finsbury,"  assures  Mr.  George  Keats,  when 
he  tells  her  that  John  is  determined  to  be  a  poet,  "that  this  was  very 
odd,  because  when  he  could  just  speak,  instead  of  answering  questions 
put  to  him,  he  would  always  make  a  rhyme  to  the  last  word  people 
said,  and  then  laugh. "  The  early  histories  of  heroes,  like  those  of 
nations,  are  always  more  or  less  mythical,  and  I  give  the  story  for 
what  it  is  worth.  Doubtless  there  is  a  gleam  of  intelligence  in  it,  for 
the  old  lady  pronounces  it  odd  that  any  one  should  determine  to  be  a 
poet,  and  seems  to  have  wished  to  hint  that  the  matter  was  determined 
earlier  and  by  a  higher  disposing  power.  There  are  few  children  who 
do  not  soon  discover  the  charm  of  rhyme,  and  perhaps  fewer  who  can 
resist  making  fun  of  the  Mrs.  Graftys,  of  Craven  Street,  Finsbury, 
when  they  have  the  chance.  See  Haydon's  Autobiography,  Vol.  I. 
p.  361. 


308  KEATS. 

is  more  wonderful  than  this  miracle  of  Spenser's,  trans 
forming  a  surgeon's  apprentice  into  a  great  poet.  Keats 
learned  at  once  the  secret  of  his  birth,  and  henceforward 
his  indentures  ran  to  Apollo  instead  of  Mr.  Hammond. 
Thus  could  the  Muse  defend  her  son.  It  is  the  old  story, 
—  the  lost  heir  discovered  by  his  aptitude  for  what  is 
gentle  and  knightly.  Haydon  tells  us  "that  he  used 
sometimes  to  say  to  his  brother  he  feared  he  should 
never  be  a  poet,  and  if  he  was  not  he  would  destroy 
himself."  This  was  perhaps  a  half-conscious  reminis 
cence  of  Chatterton,  with  whose  genius  and  fate  he  had 
an  intense  sympathy,  it  may  be  from  an  inward  forebod 
ing  of  the  shortness  of  his  own  career.* 

Before  long  we  find  him  studying  Chaucer,  then 
Shakespeare,  and  afterward  Milton.  But  Chapman's 
translations  had  a  more  abiding  influence  on  his  style 
both  for  good  and  evil.  That  he  read  wisely,  his 
comments  on  the  "  Paradise  Lost "  are  enough  to  prove. 
He  now  also  commenced  poet  himself,  but  does  not 
appear  to  have  neglected  the  study  of  his  profession. 
He  was  a  youth  of  energy  and  purpose,  and  though  he 
no  doubt  penned  many  a  stanza  when  he  should  have 
been  anatomizing,  and  walked  the  hospitals  accompanied 
by  the  early  gods,  nevertheless  passed  a  very  creditable 
examination  in  1817.  In  the  spring  of  this  year,  also, 
he  prepared  to  take  his  first  degree  as  poet,  and  accord 
ingly  published  a  small  volume  containing  a  selection  of 
his  earlier  essays  in  verse.  It  attracted  little  attention, 
and  the  rest  of  this  year  seems  to  have  been  occupied 
with  a  journey  on  foot  in  Scotland,  and  the  composition 
of  "Endymion,"  which  was  published  in  1818.  Milton's 

*  "  I  never  saw  the  poet  Keats  but  once,  but  he  then  read  some  lines 
from  (I  think)  the  'Bristowe  Tragedy'  with  an  enthusiasm  of  admi 
ration  such  as  could  be  felt  only  by  a  poet,  and  which  true  poetry  only 
could  have  excited."  —  J.  H.  C.,  in  Notes  &  Queries,  4th  s.  x.  157. 


KEATS.  309 

"Tetrachordon"  was  not  better  abused  ;  but  Milton's  as 
sailants  were  imorganized,  and  were  obliged  each  to  print 
and  pay  for  his  own  dingy  little  quarto,  trusting  to  the 
natural  laws  of  demand  and  supply  to  furnish  him  with 
readers.  Keats  was  arraigned  by  the  constituted  author 
ities  of  literary  justice.  They  might  be,  nay,  they  were 
Jeffrieses  and  Scroggses,  but  the  sentence  was  published, 
and  the  penalty  inflicted  before  all  England.  The  differ 
ence  between  his  fortune  and  Milton's  was  that  between 
being  pelted  by  a  mob  of  personal  enemies  and  being 
set  in  the  pillory.  In  the  first  case,  the  annoyance 
brushes  off  mostly  with  the  mud ;  in  the  last,  there  is 
no  solace  but  the  consciousness  of  suffering  in  a  great 
cause.  This  solace,  to  a  certain  extent,  Keats  had ;  for 
his  ambition  was  noble,  and  he  hoped  not  to  make  a 
great  reputation,  but  to  be  a  great  poet.  Haydon  says 
that  Wordsworth  and  Keats  were  the  only  men  he  had 
ever  seen  who  looked  conscious  of  a  lofty  purpose. 

It  is  curious  that  men  should  resent  more  fiercely 
what  they  suspect  to  be  good  verses,  than  what  they 
know  to  be  bad  morals.  Is  it  because  they  feel  them 
selves  incapable  of  the  one  and  not  of  the  other1? 
Probably  a  certain  amount  of  honest  loyalty  to  old 
idols  in  danger  of  dethronement  is  to  be  taken  into 
account,  and  quite  as  much  of  the  cruelty  of  criticism 
is  due  to  want  of  thought  as  to  deliberate  injustice. 
However  it  be,  the  best  poetry  has  been  the  most  sav 
agely  attacked,  and  men  who  scrupulously  practised  the 
Ten  Commandments  as  if  there  were  never  a  not  in  any 
of  them,  felt  every  sentiment  of  their  better  nature  out 
raged  by  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads."  It  is  idle  to  attempt 
to  show  that  Keats  did  not  suffer  keenly  from  the  vul 
garities  of  Blackwood  and  the  Quarterly.  He  suffered 
in  proportion  as  his  ideal  was  high,  and  he  was  conscious 
of  falling  below  it.  In  England,  especially,  it  is  not 


310  KEATS. 

pleasant  to  be  ridiculous,  even  if  you  are  a  lord  ;  but 
to  be  ridiculous  and  an  apothecary  at  the  same  time  is 
almost  as  bad  as  it  was  formerly  to  be  excommunicated. 
A  priori,  there  was  something  absurd  in  poetry  written 
by  the  son  of  an  assistant  in  the  livery -stables  of  Mr. 
Jennings,  even  though  they  were  an  establishment,  and 
a  large  establishment,  and  nearly  opposite  Finsbury 
Circus.  Mr.  Gifford,  the  ex-cobbler,  thought  so  in  the 
Quarterly,  and  Mr.  Terry,  the  actor,*  thought  so  even 
more  distinctly  in  Blackwood,  bidding  the  young  apothe 
cary  "  back  to  his  gallipots  !  "  It  is  not  pleasant  to  be 
talked  down  upon  by  your  inferiors  who  happen  to  have 
the  advantage  of  position,  nor  to  be  drenched  with  ditch- 
water,  though  you  know  it  to  be  thrown  by  a  scullion  in 
a  garret. 

Keats,  as  his  was  a  temperament  in  which  sensibility 
was  excessive,  could  not  but  be  galled  by  this  treatment. 
He  was  galled  the  more  that  he  was  also  a  man  of 
strong  sense,  and  capable  of  understanding  clearly  how 
hard  it  is  to  make  men  acknowledge  solid  value  in 
a  person  whom  they  have  once  heartily  laughed  at. 
Reputation  is  in  itself  only  a  farthing-candle,  of  waver 
ing  and  uncertain  flame,  and  easily  blown  out,  but  it  is 
the  light  by  which  the  world  looks  for  and  finds  merit. 
Keats  longed  for  fame,  but  longed  above  all  to  deserve 
it.  To  his  friend  Taylor  he  writes,  "  There  is  but  one 
way  for  me.  The  road  lies  through  study,  application, 
and  thought."  Thrilling  with  the  electric  touch  of  sacred 
leaves,  he  saw  in  vision,  like  Dante,  that  small  procession 
of  the  elder  poets  to  which  only  elect  centuries  can  add 
another  laurelled  head.  Might  he,  too,  deserve  from 
posterity  the  love  and  reverence  which  he  paid  to  those 
antique  glories  1  It  was  no  unworthy  ambition,  but 

*  Haydon  (Autobiography,  Vol.  I.  p.  379)  says  that  he  "strongly 
suspects  "  Terry  to  have  written  the  articles  in  BlackwooJ. 


KEATS.  311 

everything  was  against  him,  —  birth,  health,  even  friends, 
since  it  was  partly  on  their  account  that  he  was  sneered 
at.  His  very  name  stood  in  his  way,  for  Fame  loves  best 
such  syllables  as  are  sweet  and  sonorous  on  the  tongue, 
like  Spenserian,  Shakespearian.  In  spite  of  Juliet,  there 
is  a  great  deal  in  names,  and  when  the  fairies  come  with 
their  gifts  to  the  cradle  of  the  selected  child,  let  one, 
wiser  than  the  rest,  choose  a  name  for  him  from  which 
well-sounding  derivatives  can  be  made,  and,  best  of  all, 
with  a  termination  in  on.  Men  judge  the  current  coin 
of  opinion  by  the  ring,  and  are  readier  to  take  without 
question  whatever  is ,  Platonic,  Baconian,  Newtonian, 
Johnsonian,  Washingtonian,  Jeffersonian,  Napoleonic, 
and  all  the  rest.  You  cannot  make  a  good  adjective 
out  of  Keats,  —  the  more  pity,  —  and  to  say  a  thing  is 
Keatsy  is  to  contemn  it.  Fortune  likes  fine  names. 

Haydon  tells  us  that  Keats  was  very  much  depressed 
by  the  fortunes  of  his  book.  This  was  natural  enough, 
but  he  took  it  all  in  a  manly  way,  and  determined  to 
revenge  himself  by  writing  better  poetry.  He  knew 
that  activity,  and  not  despondency,  is  the  true  counter 
poise  to  misfortune.  Haydon  is  sure  of  the  change  in 
his  spirits,  because  he  would  come  to  the  painting-room 
and  sit  silent  for  hours.  But  we  rather  think  that  the 
conversation,  where  Mr.  Haydon  was,  resembled  that  in 
a  young  author's  first  play,  where  the  other  interlocutors 
are  only  brought  in  as  convenient  points  for  the  hero 
to  hitch  the  interminable  web  of  his  monologue  upon. 
Besides,  Keats  had  been  continuing  his  education  this 
year,  by  a  course  of  Elgin  marbles  and  pictures  by  the 
great  Italians,  and  might  very  naturally  have  found 
little  to  say  about  Mr.  Haydon's  extensive  works,  that 
he  would  have  cared  to  hear.  Lord  Houghton,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  his  eagerness  to  prove  that  Keats  was  not 
killed  by  the  article  in  the  Quarterly,  is  carried  too  far 


312  KEATS. 

toward  the  opposite  extreme,  and  more  than  hints  that 
he  was  not  even  hurt  by  it.  This  would  have  been  true 
of  Wordsworth,  who,  by  a  constant  companionship  with 
mountains,  had  acquired  something  of  their  manners, 
but  was  simply  impossible  to  a  man  of  Keats's  tem 
perament. 

On  the  whole,  perhaps,  we  need  not  respect  Keats  the 
less  for  having  been  gifted  with  sensibility,  and  may 
even  say  what  we  believe  to  be  true,  that  his  health 
was  injured  by  the  failure  of  his  book.  A  man  cannot 
have  a  sensuous  nature  and  be  pachydermatous  at  the 
same  time,  and  if  he  be  imaginative  as  well  as  sensuous, 
he  suffers  just  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  his  im 
agination.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  what  we  call  the 
world,  in  these  affairs,  is  nothing  more  than  a  mere 
Bracken  spectre,  the  projected  shadow  of  ourselves ; 
but  as  long  as  we  do  not  know  it,  it  is  a  very  passable 
giant.  We  are  not  without  experience  of  natures  so 
purely  intellectual  that  their  bodies  had  no  more  con 
cern  in  their  mental  doings  and  sufferings  than  a 
house  has  with  the  good  or  ill  fortune  of  its  occupant. 
But  poets  are  not  built  on  this  plan,  and  especially  poets 
like  Keats,  in  whom  the  moral  seems  to  have  so  perfectly 
interfused  the  physical  man,  that  you  might  almost  say 
he  could  feel  sorrow  with  his  hands,  so  truly  did  his 
body,  like  that  of  Donne's  Mistress  Boulstred,  think  and 
remember  and  forebode.  The  healthiest  poet  of  whom 
our  civilization  has  been  capable  says  that  when  he 
beholds 

"  desert  a  beggar  born, 
And  strength  by  limping  sway  disabled, 
And  art  made  tongue-tied  by  authority," 

alluding,  plainly  enough,  to  the  Giffords  of  his  day, 
"  And  simple  truth  miscalled  simplicity," 


KEATS.  313 

as  it  was  long  afterward  in  Wordsworth's  case, 
"  And  captive  Good  attending  Captain  111," 

that  then  even  he,  the  poet  to  whom,  of  all  others,  life 
seems  to  have  been  dearest,  as  it  was  also  the  fullest  of 
enjoyment,  "  tired  of  all  these,"  had  nothing  for  it  but 
to  cry  for  "  restful  Death." 

Keats,  to  all  appearance,  accepted  his  ill  fortune  cour- 
'  ageously.  He  certainly  did  not  overestimate  "  Endym- 
ion,"  and  perhaps  a  sense  of  humor  which  was  not 
wanting  in  him  may  have  served  as  a  buffer  against  the 
too  importunate  shock  of  disappointment.  "  He  made 
Ritchie  promise,"  says  Haydon,  "  he  would  carry  his 
'  Endymiou '  to  the  great  desert  of  Sahara  and  fling  it  in 
the  midst."  On  the  9th  October,  1818,  he  writes  to  his 
publisher,  Mr.  Hessey,  "  I  cannot  but  feel  indebted  to 
those  gentlemen  who  have  taken  my  part.  As  for  the 
rest,  I  begin  to  get  acquainted  with  my  own  strength 
and  weakness.  Praise  or  blame  has  but  a  momentary 
effect  on  the  man  whose  love  of  beauty  in  the  abstract 
makes  him  a  severe  critic  of  his  own  works.  My  own 
domestic  criticism  has  given  me  pain  without  compari 
son  beyond  what  Blackwood  or  the  Quarterly  could 
inflict ;  and  also,  when  I  feel  I  am  right,  no  external 
praise  can  give  me  such  a  glow  as  my  own  solitary 
reperception  and  ratification  of  what  is  fine.  J.  S.  is 
perfectly  right  in  regard  to  '  the  slipshod  Endymion.' 
That  it  is  so  is  no  fault  of  mine.  No  !  though  it  may 
sound  a  little  paradoxical,  it  is  as  good  as  I  had  power 
to  make  it  by  myself.  Had  I  been  nervous  about  its 
being  a  perfect  piece,  and  with  that  view  asked  advice 
and  trembled  over  every  page,  it  would  not  have  been 
written ;  for  it  is  not  in  my  nature  to  fumble.  I  will 
write  independently.  I  have  written  independently 
ivithout  judgment.  I  may  write  independently  and  with 


314  KEATS. 

judgment,  hereafter.  The  Genius  of  Poetry  must  work 
out  its  own  salvation  in  a  man.  It  cannot  be  matured 
by  law  and  precept,  but  by  sensation  and  watchfulness 
in  itself.  That  which  is  creative  must  create  itself.  In- 
'  Endymion  '  I  leaped  headlong  into  the  sea,  and  there 
by  have  become  better  acquainted  with  the  soundings, 
the  quicksands,  and  the  rocks,  than  if  I  had  stayed  upon 
the  green  shore,  and  piped  a  silly  pipe,  and  took  tea  and 
comfortable  advice. .  I  was  never  afraid  of  failure  ;  for 
I  would  sooner  fail  than  not  be  among  the  greatest." 

This  was  undoubtedly  true,  and  it  was  naturally  the 
side  which  a  large-minded  person  would  display  to 
a  friend.  This  is  what  he  thought,  but  whether  it 
was  what  he  felt,  I  think  doubtful.  I  look  upon  it 
rather  as  one  of  the  phenomena  of  that  multanimous 
nature  of  the  poet,  which  makes  him  for  the  moment 
that  of  which  he  has  an  intellectual  perception.  Else 
where  he  says  something  which  seems  to  hint  at  the 
true  state  of  the  case.  "  I  must  think  that  difficulties 
nerve  the  spirit  of  a  man :  they  make  our  prime  objects  a 
refuge  as  well  as  a  passion."  One  cannot  help  contrast 
ing  Keats  with  Wordsworth,  —  the  one  altogether  poet ; 
the  other  essentially  a  Wordsworth,  with  the  poetic 
faculty  added,  — the  one  shifting  from  form  to  form,  and 
from  style  to  style,  and  pouring  his  hot  throbbing  life 
into  every  mould  ;  the  other  remaining  always  the  indi 
vidual,  producing  works,  and  not  so  much  living  in  his 
poems  as  memorially  recording  his  life  in  them.  When 
Wordsworth  alludes  to  the  foolish  criticisms  on  his 
writings,  he  speaks  serenely  and  generously  of  Words 
worth  the  poet,  as  if  he  were  an  unbiassed  third  person, 
who  takes  up  the  argument  merely  in  the  interest  of 
literature.  He  towers  into  a  bald  egotism  which  is 
quite  above  and  beyond  selfishness.  Poesy  was  his 
employment ;  it  was  Keats' s  very  existence,  and  he  felt 


KEATS.  315 

the  rough  treatment  of  his  verses  as  if  it  had  been  the 
wounding  of  a  limb.  To  Wordsworth,  composing  was 
a  healthy  exercise  ;  his  slow  pulse  and  imperturbable 
self-trust  gave  him  assurance  of  a  life  so  long  that  he 
could  wait ;  and  when  we  read  his  poems  we  should 
never  suspect  the  existence  in  him  of  any  sense  but 
that  of  observation,  as  if  Wordsworth  the  poet  were 
a  half-mad  land-surveyor,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Words 
worth  the  distributor  of  stamps,  as  a  kind  of  keeper. 
But  every  one  of  Keats' s  poems  was  a  sacrifice  of  vital 
ity  ;  a  virtue  went  away  from  him  into  every  one  of 
them ;  even  yet,  as  we  turn  the  leaves,  they  seem  to 
warm  and  thrill  our  fingers  with  the  flush  of  his  fine 
senses,  and  the  flutter  of  his  electrical  nerves,  and  we 
do  not  wonder  he  felt  that  what  he  did  was  to  be  done 
swiftly. 

In  the  mean  time  his  younger  brother  languished 
and  died,  his  elder  seems  to  have  been  in  some  way 
unfortunate  and  had  gone  to  America,  and  Keats  him 
self  showed  symptoms  of  the  hereditary  disease  which 
caused  his  death  at  last.  It  is  in  October,  1818,  that 
we  find  the  first  allusion  to  a  passion  which  was,  ere 
long,  to  consume  him.  It  is  plain  enough  beforehand, 
that  those  were  not  moral  or  mental  graces  that  should 
attract  a  man  like  Keats.  His  intellect  was  satisfied 
and  absorbed  by  his  art,  his  books,  and  his  friends.  He 
could  have  companionship  and  appreciation  from  men  ; 
what  he  craved  of  woman  was  only  repose.  That  lux 
urious  nature,  which  would  have  tossed  uneasily  on  a 
crumpled  rose-leaf,  must  have  something  softer  to  rest 
upon  than  intellect,  something  less  ethereal  than  cul 
ture.  It  was  his  body  that  needed  to  have  its  equilib 
rium  restored,  the  waste  of  his  nervous  energy  that 
must  be  repaired  by  deep  draughts  of  the  overflowing 
life  and  drowsy  tropical  force  of  an  abundant  and 


316  KEATS. 

healthily  poised  womanhood.  Writing  to  his  sister-in- 
law,  he  says  of  this  nameless  person :  "  She  is  not  a 
Cleopatra,  but  is,  at  least,  a  Charmian ;  she  has  a  rich 
Eastern  look;  she  has  fine  eyes  and  fine  manners. 
When  she  comes  into  a  room  she  makes  the  same  im 
pression  as  the  beauty  of  a  leopardess.  She  is  too  fine 
and  too  conscious  of  herself  to  repulse  any  man  who 
may  address  her.  From  habit,  she  thinks  that  nothing 
particular.  I  always  find  myself  at  ease  with  such  a 
woman ;  the  picture  before  me  always  gives  me  a  life 
and  animation  which  I  cannot  possibly  feel  with  any 
thing  inferior.  I  am  at  such  times  too  much  occupied 
in  admiring  to  be  awkward  or  in  a  tremble.  I  forget 
myself  entirely,  because  I  live  in  her.  You  will  by  this 
time  think  I  am  in  love  with  her,  so,  before  I  go  any 
farther,  I  will  tell  you  that  I  am  not.  She  kept  me 
awake  one  night,  as  a  tune  of  Mozart's  might  do.  I 
speak  of  the  thing  as  a  pastime  and  an  amusement,  than 
which  I  can  feel  none  deeper  than  a  conversation  with 
an  imperial  woman,  the  very  yes  and  no  of  whose  life  is 

to  me  a  banquet I  like  her  and  her  like,  because 

one  has  no  sensation;  what  we  both  are  is  taken  for 
granted She  walks  across  a  room  in  such  a  man 
ner  that  a  man  is  drawn  toward  her  with  magnetic  power. 
....  I  believe,  though,  she  has  faults,  the  same  as  a 
Cleopatra  or  a  Charmian  might  have  had.  Yet  she  is  a 
fine  thipg,  speaking  in  a  worldly  way ;  for  there  are  two 
distinct  tempers  of  mind  in  which  we  judge  of  things, 
—  the  worldly,  theatrical,  and  pantomimical ;  and  the 
unearthly,  spiritual,  and  ethereal.  In  the  former,  Bona 
parte,  Lord  Byron,  and  this  Charmian  hold  the  first 
place  in  o.ur  minds  ;  in  the  latter,  John  Howard,  Bishop 
Hooker  rocking  his  child's  cradle,  and  you,  my  dear 
sister,  are  the  conquering  feelings.  As  a  man  of  the 
world,  I  love  the  rich  talk  of  a  Charmian ;  as  an  eternal 


KEATS.  317 

being,  I  love  the  thought  of  you.  I  should  like  her  to 
ruin  me,  and  I  should  like  you  to  save  me." 

It  is  pleasant  always  to  see  Love  hiding  his  head  with 
such  pains,  while  his  whole  body  is  so  clearly  visible,  as 
in  this  extract.  This  lady,  it  seems,  is  not  a  Cleopatra, 
only  a  Charmian ;  but  presently  we  find  that  she  is  im 
perial.  He  does  not  love  her,  but  he  would  just  like  to 
be  ruined  by  her,  nothing  more.  This  glimpse  of  her, 
with  her  leopardess  beauty,  crossing  the  room  and  draw 
ing  men  after  her  magnetically,  is  all  we  have.  She 
seems  to  have  been  still  living  in  1848,  and  as  Lord 
Houghton  tells  us,  kept  the  memory  of  the  poet  sacred. 
"  She  is  an  East-Indian,"  Keats  says,  "  and  ought  to  be 
her  grandfather's  heir."  Her  name  we  do  not  know. 
It  appears  from  Dilke's  "  Papers  of  a  Critic  "  that  they 
were  betrothed  :  "  It  is  quite  a  settled  thing  between 

John  Keats  and  Miss  .     God  help  them.     It  is  a 

bad  thing  for  them.  The  mother  says  she  cannot  pre 
vent  it,  faud  that  her  only  hope  is  that  it  will  go  off. 
He  don't  like  any  one  to  look  at  her  or  to  speak  to  her." 
Alas,  the  tropical  warmth  became  a  consuming  fire ! 

"  His  passion  cruel  grown  took  on  a  hue 
Fierce  and  sanguineous." 

Between  this  time  and  the  spring  of  1820  he  seems 
to  have  worked  assiduously.  Of  course,  worldly  success 
was  of  more  importance  than  ever.  He  began  "  Hyperion," 
but  had  given  it  up  in  September,  1819,  because,  as  he 
said,  "there  were  too  many  Miltonic  inversions  in  it." 
He  wrote  "  Lamia"  after  an  attentive  study  of  Dryden's 
versification.  This  period  also  produced  the  "Eve  of  St. 
Agnes,"  "Isabella,"  and  the  odes  to  the  "Nightingale  "  and 
to  the  "  Grecian  Urn."  He  studied  Italian,  read  Ariosto, 
and  wrote  part  of  a  humorous  poem,  "The  Cap  and  Bells." 
He  tried  his  hand  at  tragedy,  and  Lord  Houghton  has 


318  KEATS. 

published  among  his  "Remains,"  "  Otho  the  Great,"  and 
all  that  was  ever  written  of  "  King  Stephen."  We  think 
he  did  unwisely,  for  a  biographer  is  hardly  called  upon 
to  show  how  ill  his  biographee  could  do  anything. 

In  the  winter  of  1820  he  was  chilled  in  riding  on  the 
top  of  a  stage-coach,  and  came  home  in  a  state  of  fever 
ish  excitement.  He  was  persuaded  to  go  to  bed,  and  in 
getting  between  the  cold  sheets,  coughed  slightly.  "  That 
is  blood  in  my  mouth,"  he  said ;  "  bring  me  the  candle ; 
let  me  see  this  blood."  It  was  of  a  brilliant  red,  and  his 
medical  knowledge  enabled  him  to  interpret  the  augury. 
Those  narcotic  odors  that  seem  to  breathe  seaward,  and 
steep  in  repose  the  senses  of  the  voyager  who  is  drifting 
toward  the  shore  of  the  mysterious  Other  World,  appear 
ed  to  envelop  him,  and,  looking  up  with  sudden  calm 
ness,  he  said,  "  I  know  the  color  of  that  blood ;  it  is 
arterial  blood;  I  cannot  be  deceived  in  that  color.  That 
drop  is  my  death-warrant ;  I  must  die." 

There  was  a  slight  rally  during  the  summeV  of  that 
year,  but  toward  autumn  he  grew  worse  again,  and  it 
was  decided  that  he  should  go  to  Italy.  He  was  accom 
panied  thither  by  his  friend,  Mr.  Severn,  an  artist.  After 
embarking,  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  Mr.  Brown.  We  give 
a  part  of  this  letter,  which  is  so  deeply  tragic  that  the 
sentences  we  take  almost  seem  to  break  away  from  the 
rest  with  a  cry  of  anguish,  like  the  branches  of  Dante's 
lamentable  wood. 

"  I  wish  to  write  on  subjects  that  will  not  agitate  me 
much.  There  is  one  I  must  mention  and  have  done 
with  it.  Even  if  my  body  would  recover  of  itself,  this 
would  prevent  it.  The  very  thing  which  I  want  to  live 
most  for  will  be  a  great  occasion  of  my  death.  I  cannot 
help  it.  Who  can  help  it  1  Were  I  in  health  it  would 
make  me  ill,  and  how  can  I  bear  it  in  my  state  1  I  dare 
say  you  will  be  able  to  guess  on  what  subject  I  am  harp- 


KEATS.  319 

ing,  —  you  know  what  was  my  greatest  pain  during  the 
first  part  of  my  illness  at  your  house.  I  wish  for  death 
every  day  and  night  to  deliver  me  from  these  pains,  and 
then  I  wish  death  away,  for  death  would  destroy  even 
those  pains,  which  are  better  than  nothing.  Land  and 
sea,  weakness  and  decline,  are  great  separators,  but 
Death  is  the  great  divorcer  forever.  When  the  pang 
of  this  thought  has  passed  through  my  mind,  I  may  say 
the  bitterness  of  death  is  passed.  I  often  wish  for  you, 
that  you  might  flatter  me  with  the  best.  I  think,  with 
out  my  mentioning  it,  for  my  sake,  you  would  be  a  friend 

to  Miss when  I  am  dead.     You  think  she  has  many 

faults,  but  for  my  sake  think  she  has  not  one.  If  there 
is  anything  you  can  do  for  her  by  word  or  deed  I  know 
you  will  do  it.  I  am  in  a  state  at  present  in  which 
woman,  merely  as  woman,  can  have  no  more  power  over 
me  than  stocks  and  stones,  and  yet  the  difference  of  my 

sensations  with  respect  to  Miss and  my  sister  is 

amazing,  —  the  one  seems  to  absorb  the  other  to  a  degree 
incredible.  I  seldom  think  of  my  brother  and  sister  in 

America ;    the  thought  of  leaving  Miss is  beyond 

everything  horrible,  —  the  sense  of  darkness  coming  over 
me, — I  eternally  see  her  figure  eternally  vanishing;  some 
of  the  phrases  she  was  in  the  habit  of  using  during  my 
last  nursing  at  Wentworth  Place  ring  in  my  ears.  Is 
there  another  life  1  Shall  I  awake  and  find  all  this  a 
dream  1  There  must  be ;  we  cannot  be  created  for  this 
sort  of  suffering." 

To  the  same  friend  he  writes  again  from  Naples,  1st 
November,  1820:- 

"  The  persuasion  that  I  shall  see  her  no  more  will  kill 
me.  My  dear  Brown,  I  should  have  had  her  when  I  was 
in  health,  and  I  should  have  remained  well.  I  can  bear 
to  die,  —  I  cannot  bear  to  leave  her.  0  God  !  God  ! 
God !  Everything  I  have  in  my  trunks  that  reminds 


320  KEATS. 

me  of  her  goes  through  me  like  a  spear.  The  silk  lining 
she  put  in  my  travelling-cap  scalds  my  head.  My  im 
agination  is  horribly  vivid  about  her,  —  I  see  her,  I  hear 
her.  There  is  nothing  in  the  world  of  sufficient  interest 
to  divert  me  from  her  a  moment.  This  was  the  case 
when  I  was  in  England ;  I  cannot  recollect,  without 
shuddering,  the  time  that  I  was  a  prisoner  at  Hunt's, 
and  used  to  keep  my  eyes  fixed  on  Hampstead  all  day. 
Then  there  was  a  good  hope  of  seeing  her  again, —  now  ! 
• —  0  that  I  could  be  buried  near  where  she  lives  !  I  am 
afraid  to  write  to  her,  to  receive  a  letter  from  her,  —  to 
see  her  handwriting  would  break  my  heart.  Even  to 
hear  of  her  anyhow,  to  see  her  name  written,  would  be 
more  than  I  can  bear.  My  dear  Brown,  what  am  I  to 
do  1  Where  can  I  look  for  consolation  or  ease  1  If  I  had 
any  chance  of  recovery,  this  passion  would  kill  me. 
Indeed,  through  the  whole  of  my  illness,  both  at  your 
house  and  at  Kentish  Town,  this  fever  has  never  ceased 
wearing  me  out." 

The  two  friends  went  almost  immediately  from  Naples 
to  Rome,  where  Keats  was  treated  with  great  kindness 
by  the  distinguished  physician,  Dr.  (afterward  Sir  James) 
Clark.*  But  there  was  no  hope  from  the  first.  His 
disease  was  beyond  remedy,  as  his  heart  was  beyond 
comfort.  The  very  fact  that  life  might  be  happy  deep 
ened  his  despair.  He  might  not  have  sunk  so  soon, 
but  the  waves  in  which  .he  was  struggling  looked  only 
the  blacker  that  they  were  shone  upon  by  the  signal- 
torch  that  promised  safety  and  love  and  rest. 

It  is  good  to  know  that  one  of  Keats's  last  pleasiires 

*  The  lodging  of  Keats  was  on  the  Piazza  di  Spagna,  in  the  first 
house  on  the  right  hand  in  going  up  the  Scalinata.  Mr.  Severn's 
Studio  is  said  to  have  been  in  the  Cancello  over  the  garden  gate  of  the 
Villa  Negroni,  pleasantly  familiar  to  all  Americans  as  the  Eoman 
home  of  their  countryman  Crawford. 


KEATS.  321 

was  in  hearing  Severn  read  aloud  from  a  volume  of 
Jeremy  Taylor.  On  first  coming  to  Rome,  he  had  bought 
a  copy  of  Alfieia,  but,  finding  on  the  second  page  these 
lines, 

"  Misera  me !  sollievo  a  me  non  resta 
Altro  che  il  pianto,  ed  il  pianto  e  delitto," 

he  laid  down  the  book  and  opened  it  no  more.  On  the 
14th  February,  1821,  Severn  speaks  of  a  change  that 
had  taken  place  in  him  toward  greater  quietness  and 
peace.  He  talked  much,  and  fell  at  last  into  a  sweet 
sleep,  in  which  he  seemed  to  have  happy  dreams.  Per 
haps  he  heard  the  soft  footfall  of  the  angel  of  Death, 
pacing  to  and  fro  under  his  window,  to  be  his  Valentine. 
That  night  he  asked  to  have  this  epitaph  inscribed  upon 
his  gravestone, — 

"  HERE  LIES  ONE  WHOSE  NAME  WAS  WRIT  IN  WATER." 

On  the  23d  he  died,  without  pain  and  as  if  falling  asleep. 
His  last  words  were,  "  I  am  dying ;  I  shall  die  easy;  don't 
be  frightened,  be  firm  and  thank  God  it  has  come  ! " 

He  was  buried  in  the  Protestant  burial-ground  at 
Rome,  in  that  part  of  it  which  is  now  disused  and  se 
cluded  from  the  rest.  A  short  time  before  his  death  be 
told  Severn  that  he  thought  his  intensest  pleasure  in 
life  had  been  to  watch  the  growth  of  flowers ;  and  once, 
after  lying  peacefully  awhile,  he  said,  "  I  feel  the  flowers 
growing  over  me."  His  grave  is  marked  by  a  little 
headstone  on  which  are  carved  somewhat  rudely  his 
name  and  age,  and  the  epitaph  dictated  by  himself.  No 
tree  or  shrub  has  been  planted  near  it,  but  the  daisies, 
faithful  to  their  buried  lover,  crowd  his  small  mound 
with  a  galaxy  of  their  innocent  stars,  more  prosperous 
than  those  under  which  he  lived.* 

*  Written  in  1856.    Q  irony  of  Time  !    Ten  years  after  the  poet's 
death,  the  woman  he  had  so  loved  wrote  to  his  friend  Mr.  Dilke,  that 


322  KEATS. 

In  person,  Keats  was  below  the  middle  height,  with  a 
head  small  in  proportion  to  the  breadth  of  his  shoulders. 
His  hair  was  brown  and  fine,  falling  in  natural  ringlets 
about  a  face  in  which  energy  and  sensibility  were  re 
markably  mixed.  Every  feature  was  delicately  cut ; 
the  chin  was  bold ;  and  about  the  mouth  something  of  a 
pugnacious  expression.  His  eyes  were  mellow  and  glow 
ing,  large,  dark,  and  sensitive.  At  the  recital  of  a  noble 
action  or  a  beautiful  thought  they  would  suffuse  with 
tears,  and  his  mouth  trembled.*  Haydon  says  that  his 
eyes  had  an  inward  Delphian  look  that  was  perfectly 
divine. 

The  faults  of  Keats's  poetry  are  obvious  enough,  but 
it  should  be  remembered  that  he  died  at  twenty-five, 
and  that  he  offends  by  superabundance  and  not  poverty. 
That  he  was  overlanguaged  at  first  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  and  in  this  was  implied  the  possibility  of  falling 
back  to  the  perfect  mean  of  diction.  It  is  only  by  the 
rich  that  the  costly  plainness,  which  at  once  satisfies 
the  taste  and  the  imagination,  is  attainable. 

Whether  Keats  was  original  or  not,  I  do  not  think  it 
useful  to  discuss  until  it  has  been  settled  what  original 
ity  is.  Lord  Houghton  tells  us  that  this  merit  (whatever 
it  is)  has  been  denied  to  Keats,  because  his  poems  take 
the  color  of  the  authors  he  happened  to  be  reading  at  the 
time  he  wrote  them.  But  men  have  their  intellectual 
ancestry,  and  the  likeness  of  some  one  of  them  is  for 
ever  unexpectedly  flashing  out  in  the  features  of  a  de 
scendant,  it  may  be  after  a  gap  of  several  generations. 
In  the  parliament  of  the  present  every  man  represents 

"  the  kindest  act  would  be  to  let  him  rest  forever  in  the  obscurity  to 
which  circumstances  had  condemned  him  "  !  (Papers  of  a  Critic,  I. 
11.)  0  Time  the  atoner  !  In  1874  I  found  the  grave  planted  with 
shrubs  and  flowers,  the  pious  homage  of  the  daughter  of  our  most 
eminent  American  sculptor. 
*  Leigh  Hunt's  Autobiography,  II.  43. 


KEATS.  323 

a  constituency  of  the  past.  It  is  true  that  Keats  has 
the  accent  of  the  men  from  whom  he  learned  to  speak, 
but  this  is  to  make  originality  a  mere  question  of  ex 
ternals,  and  in  this  sense  the  author  of  a  dictionary 
might  bring  an  action  of  trover  against  every  author 
who  used  his  words.  It  is  the  man  behind  the  words 
that  gives  them  value,  and  if  Shakespeare  help  himself 
to  a  verse  or  a  phrase,  it  is  with  ears  that  have  learned 
of  him  to  listen  that  we  feel  the  harmony  of  the  one, 
and  it  is  the  mass  of  his  intellect  that  makes  the  other 
weighty  with  meaning.  Enough  that  we  recognize  in 
Keats  that  indefinable  newness  and  unexpectedness 
which  we  call  genius.  The.sunset  is  original  every  even 
ing,  though  for  thousands  of  years  it  has  built  out  of 
the  same  light  and  vapor  its  visionary  cities  with  domes 
and  pinnacles,  and  its  delectable  mountains  which  night 
shall  utterly  abase  and  destroy. 

Three  men,  almost  contemporaneous  with  each  other,  — 
Wordswoi'th,  Keats,  and  Byron,  —  were  the  great  means 
of  bringing  back  English  poetry  from  the  sandy  deserts 
of  rhetoric,  and  recovering  for  her  her  triple  inherit 
ance  of  simplicity,  sensuousness,  and  passion.  Of  these, 
Wordsworth  was  the  only  conscious  reformer,  and  his 
hostility  to  the  existing  formalism  injured  his  earlier 
poems  by  tingeing  them  with  something  of  iconoclastic 
extravagance.  He  was  the  deepest  thinker,  Keats  the 
most  essentially  a  poet,  and  Byron  the  most  keenly 
intellectual  of  the  three.  Keats  had  the  broadest  mind, 
or  at  least  his  mind  was  open  on  more  sides,  and  he  was 
able  to  understand  Wordsworth  and  judge  Byron,  equally 
conscious,  through  his  artistic  sense,  of  the  greatnesses 
of  the  one  and  the  many  littlenesses  of  the  other,  while 
Wordsworth  was  isolated  in  a  feeling  of  his  prophetic 
character,  and  Byron  had  only  an.  uneasy  and  jealous 
instinct  of  contemporary  merit.  The  poems  of  Words- 


324  KEATS. 

worth,  as  he  was  the  most  individual,  accordingly  reflect 
the  moods  of  his  own  nature  ;  those  of  Keats,  from  sen 
sitiveness  of  organization,  the  moods  of  his  own  taste 
and  feeling;  and  those  of  Byron,  who  was  impressible 
chiefly  through  the  understanding,  the  intellectual  and 
moral  wants  of  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  Words 
worth  has  influenced  most  the  ideas  of  succeeding 
poets ;  Keats,  their  forms ;  and  Byron,  interesting  to* 
men  of  imagination  less  for  his  writings  than  for  what 
his  writings  indicate,  reappears  no  more  in  poetry,  but 
presents  an  ideal  to  youth  made  restless  with  vague  de 
sires  not  yet  regulated  by  experience  nor  supplied  with 
motives  by  the  duties  of  life. 

Keats  certainly  had  more  of  the  penetrative  and  sym 
pathetic  imagination  which  belongs  to  the  poet,  of  that 
imagination  which  identifies  itself  with  the  momentary 
object  of  its  contemplation,  than  any  man  of  these  later 
days.  It  is  not  merely  that  he  has  studied  the  Eliza 
bethans  and  caught  their  turn  of  thought,  but  that  he 
really  sees  things  with  their  sovereign  eye,  and  feels 
them  with  their  electrified  senses.  His  imagination  was 
his  bliss  and  bane.  Was  he  cheerful,  he  "  hops  about 
the  gravel  with  the  sparrows " ;  was  he  morbid,  he 
"  would  reject  a  Petrarcal  coronation,  —  on  account  of 
my  dying  day,  and  because  women  have  cancers."  So 
impressible  was  he  as  to  say  that  he  "  had  no  nature," 
meaning  character.  But  he  knew  what  the  faculty  was 
worth,  and  says  finely,  "  The  imagination  may  be  com 
pared  to  Adam's  dream  :  he  awoke  and  found  it  truth." 
He  had  an  unerring  instinct  for  the  poetic  uses  of  things, 
and  for  him  they  had  no  other  use.  We  are  apt  to  talk 
of  the  classic  renaissance  as  of  a  phenomenon  long  past, 
nor  ever  to  be  renewed,  and  to  think  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  alone  had  the  mighty  magic  to  work  such  a 
miracle.  To  me  one  of  the  most  interesting  aspects  of 


KEATS.  325 

Keats  is  that  in  him  we  have  an  example  of  the  renais 
sance  going  on  almost  under  our  own  eyes,  and  that  the 
intellectual  ferment  was  in  him  kindled  by  a  purely 
English  leaven.  He  had  properly  no  scholarship,  any 
more  than  Shakespeare  had,  but  like  him  he  assimilated 
at  a  touch  whatever  could  serve  his  purpose.  His  deli 
cate  senses  absorbed  culture  at  every  pore.  Of  the  self- 
denial  to  which  he  trained  himself  (unexampled  in  one 
so  young)  the  second  draft  of  Hyperion  as  compared 
with  the  first  is  a  conclusive  proof.  And  far  indeed  is 
his  "  Lamia  "  from  the  lavish  indiscrimination  of  "  En- 
dymion."  In  his  Odes  he  showed  a  sense  of  form  and 
proportion  which  we  seek  vainly  in  almost  any  other 
English  poet,  and  some  of  his  sonnets  (taking  all  quali 
ties  into  consideration)  are  the  most  perfect  in  our  lan 
guage.  No  doubt  thei'e  is  something  tropical  and  of 
strange  overgrowth  in  his  sudden  maturity,  but  it  was 
maturity  nevertheless.  Happy  the  young  poet  who  has 
the  saving  fault  of  exuberance,  if  he  have  also  the  shap 
ing  faculty  that  sooner  or  later  will  amend  it ! 

As  every  young  person  goes  through  all  the  world-old 
experiences,  fancying  them  something  peculiar  and  per 
sonal  to  himself,  so  it  is  with  every  new  generation, 
whose  youth  always  finds  its  representatives  in  its  poets. 
Keats  rediscovered  the  delight  and  wonder  that  lay  en 
chanted  in  the  dictionary.  Wordsworth  revolted  at  the 
poetic  diction  which  he  found  in  vogue,  but  his  own 
language  rarely  rises  above  it,  except  when  it  is  upborne 
by  the  thought.  Keats  had  an  instinct  for  fine  words, 
which  are  in  themselves  pictures  and  ideas,  and  had 
more  of  the  power  of  poetic  expression  than  any  modern 
English  poet.  And  by  poetic  expression  I  do  not  mean 
merely  a  vividness  in  particulars,  but  the  right  feeling 
which  heightens  or  subdues  a  passage  or  a  whole  poem 
to  the  proper  tone,  and  gives  entireness  to  the  effect. 


326  KEATS. 

There  is  a  great  deal  more  than  is  commonly  supposed 
in  this  choice  of  words.  Men's  thoughts  and  opinions 
are  in  a  great  degree  vassals  of  him  who  invents  a  new 
phrase  or  reapplies  an  old  epithet.  The  thought  or 
feeling  a  thousand  times  repeated  becomes  his  at  last 
who  utters  it  best.  This  power  of  language  is  veiled  in 
the  old  legends  which  make  the  invisible  powers  the 
servants  of  some  word.  As  soon  as  we  have  discovered 
the  word  for  our  joy  or  sorrow  we  are  no  longer  its  serfs, 
but  its  lords.  We  reward  the  discoverer  of  an  anaes 
thetic  for  the  body  and  make  him  member  of  all  the 
societies,  but  him  who  finds  a  nepenthe  for  the  soul  we 
elect  into  the  small  academy  of  the  immortals. 

The  poems  of  Keats  mark  an  epoch  in  English  poetry ; 
for,  however  often  we  may  find  traces  of  it  in  others,  in 
them  found  its  most  unconscious  expression  that  reaction 
against  the  barrel-organ  style  which  had  been  reigning  by 
a  kind  of  sleepy  divine  right  for  half  a  century.  The 
lowest  point  was  indicated  when  there  was  such  an  utter 
confounding  of  the  common  and  the  uncommon  sense  that 
Dr.  Johnson  wrote  verse  and  Burke  prose.  The  most 
profound  gospel  of  criticism  was,  that  nothing  was  good 
poetry  that  could  not  be  translated  into  good  prose,  as 
if  one  should  say  that  the  test  of  sufficient  moonlight 
was  that  tallow-candles  could  be  made  of  it.  We  find 
Keats  at  first  going  to  the  other  extreme,  and  endeavor 
ing  to  extract  green  cucumbers  from  the  rays  of  tallow; 
but  we  see  also  incontestable  proof  of  the  greatness  and 
purity  of  his  poetic  gift  in  the  constant  return  toward 
equilibrium  and  repose  in  his  later  poems.  And  it  is  a 
repose  always  lofty  and  clear-aired,  like  that  of  the 
eagle  balanced  in  incommunicable  sunshine.  In  him  a 
vigorous  understanding  developed  itself  in  equal  measure 
with  the  divine  faculty ;  thought  emancipated  itself 
from  expression  without  becoming  its  tyrant ;  and  music 


KEATS.  327 

and  meaning  floated  together,  accordant  as  swan  and 
shadow,  on  the  smooth  element  of  his  verse.  Without 
losing  its  sensuousness,  his  poetry  refined  itself  and 
grew  more  inward,  and  the  sensational  was  elevated 
into  the  typical  by  the  control  of  that  finer  sense  which 
underlies  the  senses  and  is  the  spirit  of  them. 


THE   END. 


Cambridge  :  Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


